All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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Coffee may be considered a member of the general class of adjuvant, or auxiliary, foods to which other beverages and condiments of negligible inherent food value belong. Its position on the average menu may be attributed largely to its palatability and comforting effects. However, the medicinal value of coffee in the dietary and per se must not be overlooked.
The ingestion of coffee infusion is always followed by evidences of stimulation. It acts upon the nervous system as a powerful cerebro-spinal stimulant, increasing mental activity and quickening the power of perception, thus making the thoughts more precise and clear, and intellectual work easier without any evident subsequent depression. The muscles are caused to contract more vigorously, increasing their working power without there being any secondary reaction leading to a diminished capacity for work. Its action upon the circulation is somewhat antagonistic; for while it tends to increase the rate of the heart by acting directly on the heart muscle, it tends to decrease it by stimulating the inhibitory center in the medulla.[188]
The effect on the kidneys is more marked, the diuretic effect being shown by an increase in water, soluble solids, and of uric acid directly attributable to the caffein content of the coffee taken. In the alimentary tract coffee seems to stimulate the oxyntic cells and slightly to increase the secretion of hydrochloric acid, as well as to favor intestinal peristalsis. It is difficult to accept reports of coffee accomplishing both a decrease in metabolism and an increase in body heat; but if the production of heat by the demethylation of caffein to form uric acid and a possible repression of perspiration by coffee be considered, the simultaneous occurrence of these two physiological reactions may be credited.
The disagreement of medical authorities over the physiological effects of coffee is quite pronounced. This may be observed by a careful perusal of the following statements made by these men. It will be noticed that the majority opinion is that coffee in moderation is not harmful. Just how much coffee a person may drink, and still remain within the limits of moderation and temperance, is dependent solely upon the individual constitution, and should be decided from personal experience rather than by accepting an arbitrary standard set by some one who professes to be an authority on the matter.
A writer in the British Homeopathic Review[189] says that "the exciting effects of coffee upon the nervous system exhibit themselves in all its departments as a temporary exaltation. The emotions are raised in pitch, the fancies are lively and vivid, benevolence is excited, the religious sense is stimulated, there is great loquacity.... The intellectual powers are stimulated, both memory and judgment are rendered more keen and unusual vivacity of verbal expression rules for a short time." He continues:
Hahnemann gives a characteristically careful account of the coffee headache. If the quantity of coffee taken be immoderately great and the body be very excitable and quite unused to coffee, there occurs a semilateral headache from the upper part of the parietal bone to the base of the brain. The cerebral membranes of this side also seem to be painfully sensitive, the hands and feet becoming cold, and sweat appears on the brows and palms. The disposition becomes irritable and intolerant, anxiety, trembling and restlessness are apparent.... I have met with headaches of this type which yielded readily to coffee and with many more in which the indicated remedy failed to act until the use of coffee as a beverage was abandoned. The eyes and ears suffer alike from the super-excitation of coffee. There is a characteristic toothache associated with coffee.
In apparent contradiction of this opinion, Dr. Valentin Nalpasse,[190] of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, states:
When coffee is properly made and taken in moderation, it is a most valuable drink. It facilitates the digestion because it produces a local excitement. Its principal action gives clear and stable imaginative power to the brain. By doing that, it makes intellectual work easy, and, to a certain extent, regulates the functions of the brain. The thoughts become more precise and clear, and mental combinations are formed with much greater rapidity. Under the influence of coffee, the memory is sometimes surprisingly active, and ideas and words flow with ease and elegance.... Many people abuse coffee without feeling any bad effect.
Discussing the use and abuse of coffee, I.N. Love[191] says:
The world has in the infusion of coffee one of its most valuable beverages. It is a prompt diffusible stimulant, antiseptic and encourager of elimination. In season it supports, tides over danger, helps the appropriate powers of the system, whips up the flagging energies, enhances the endurance; but it is in no sense a food, and for this reason it should be used temperately.
Also Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson[192] makes the following weighty pronouncement:
In reference to my suggestion to give children tea and coffee. I may explain that it is done advisedly. There is probably no objection to their use even at early ages. They arouse the dull, calm the excitable, prevent headaches, and fit the brain for work. They preserve the teeth, keep them tight in their place, strengthen the vocal chords, and prevent sore throat. To stigmatize these invaluable articles of diet as "nerve stimulants" is an erroneous expression, for they undoubtedly have a right to rank as nerve nutrients.
But Dr. Harvey Wiley[193] comes forth with evidence on the other side, saying:
The effects of the excessive use of coffee, tea, and other natural caffein beverages is well known. Although the caffein is combined in these beverages naturally, and they are as a rule taken at meal times, which mitigates the effects of the caffein, they are recognized by every one as tending to produce sleeplessness, and often indigestion, stomach disorders, and a condition which, for lack of a better term, is described as nervousness.... The excessive drinking of tea and coffee is acknowledged to be injurious by practically all specialists.
Dr. V.C. Vaughn,[194] of the University of Michigan, speaking of tea and coffee, expresses this opinion:
I believe that caffein used as a beverage and in moderation not only is harmless to the majority of adults, but is beneficial.
This verdict is upheld by the results of a symposium[195] conducted by the Medical Times, in which a large majority of the medical experts participating, among whom may be enumerated Drs. Lockwood, Wood, Hollingworth, Robinson, and Barnes, agreed that the drinking of coffee is not harmful per se, but that over-indulgence is the real cause of any ill effects. This is also true of any ingested material.
Insomnia is a condition frequently attributed to coffee, but that the authorities disagree on this ground is shown by Wiley's[196] contention, "We know beyond doubt that the caffein (in coffee) makes a direct attack on the nerves and causes insomnia." While Woods Hutchinson[197] observes:
Oddly enough, a cup of hot, weak tea or coffee, with plenty of cream and sugar, will often help you to sleep, for the grateful warmth and stimulus to the lining of the stomach, drawing the blood into it and away from the head, will produce more soothing effects than the small amount of caffein will produce stimulating and wakeful ones.
The writer has often had people remark to him that while black coffee sometimes kept them awake, coffee with cream or sugar or both made them drowsy.
In the course of experiments conducted by Montuori and Pollitzer[198] it was found that coffee prepared by hot infusion when given by mouth or hypodermically with the addition of a small dose of alcohol proved an efficient means of combating the pernicious effects of low temperatures. Coffee prepared by boiling, and tea, showed negative effects.
The value of coffee as a strength-conserver, and its function of increasing endurance, morale, and healthfulness, was demonstrated by the great stress which the military authorities, in the late and in previous wars, placed upon furnishing the soldiers with plenty of good coffee, particularly at times when they were under the greatest strain. Various articles[199] record this fact; and these statements are further borne out by the data given below in the discussion of the physiological effects of caffein, to which the majority of the stimulating effects of coffee may be attributed.
According to Fauvel,[200] with a healthy patient on a vegetable diet, chocolate and coffee increase the excretion of purins, diminishing the excretion of uric acid and apparently hindering the precipitation of uric acid in the organism. This diminution, however, was not due to retention of uric acid in the organism.
"Habit-forming" is one of the adjectives often used in describing coffee, but it is a fact that coffee is much less likely than alcoholic liquors to cause ill effects. A man rarely becomes a slave of coffee; and excessive drinking of this beverage never produces a state of moral irresponsibility or leads to the commission of crime. Dr. J.W. Mallet,[201] in testimony given before a Federal Court, stated that caffein and coffee were not habit-forming in the correct sense of the term. His definition of the expression is that the habit formed must be a detrimental and injurious one—one which becomes so firmly fixed upon a person forming it that it is thrown off with great difficulty and with considerable suffering, continuous exercise of the habit increasing the demand for the habit-forming drug. It is well known that the desire ceases in a very short period of time after cessation of use of caffein-containing beverages, so that in that sense, coffee is not habit-forming.
Sacking Coffee in a Warehouse at the Port of Santos Sacking Coffee in a Warehouse at the Port of Santos
PICKING AND SACKING COFFEE IN BRAZIL
It has been shown by Gourewitsch[202] that the daily administration of coffee produces a certain degree of tolerance, and that the doses must be increased to obtain toxic results. Harkness[203] has been quoted as stating that "taken in moderation; coffee is one of the most wholesome beverages known. It assists digestion, exhilarates the spirits, and counteracts the tendency to sleep." Carl V. Voit,[204] the German physiological chemist, says this about coffee:
The effect of coffee is that we are bothered less by unpleasant experiences and become more able to conquer difficulties; therefore, for the feasting rich, it makes intestinal work after a meal less evident and drives away the deadly ennui; for the student it is a means to keep wide awake and fresh; for the worker it makes the day's fatigue more bearable.
Dr. Brady[205] believes that the so-called harmfulness of coffee is mainly psychological, as evidenced by his expression, "Most of the prejudice which exists against coffee as a beverage is based upon nothing more than morbid fancy. People of dyspeptic or neurotic temperament are fond of assuming that coffee must be bad because it is so good,
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