M. MATERIA MEDICA, THERAPEUTICS, AND HYGIENE. 549 



say within a few per cent, what quantity of water has been 

 added to any given sample of milk that may come to our 

 notice. 1 A, July 29, 55 ; August 5, 61. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COFFEE. 



An interesting communication was made at a meeting of 

 the Academy of Sciences in Paris in regard to the value of 

 coffee as an article of food. Attention was called to a state- 

 ment of Mr. Gasparin, in 1850, that the miners of Charleroi 

 preserved their health and great vigor of muscular force by 

 the use of less than half of the nutriment indicated as neces- 

 sary by theory and daily observation. Using food contain- 

 ing less nitrogen and carbon than the daily ration of the 

 monks of La Trappe, whose countenances are pale, and who 

 exercise scarcely one fifth as much as an ordinary workman, 

 these Belgian miners were most industrious and energetic in 

 their labors. The secret of the difference was stated by Mr. 

 Gasparin to consist in the use every day by these miners of 

 a pint of an infusion of about an ounce of coffee prepared in 

 two quarts of water, which served the purpose of counteract- 

 ing the injurious effect of an insufficient supply of food. 



Reference was also made to an experiment in 1860, by Mr. 

 Jousand, in which, by the use of a decoction of about an 

 ounce and a half of powdered coffee, a young man was kept, 

 with no other food whatever, in good health and strength for 

 seven days, during which time he took more active muscular 

 exercise than usual, without any special inconvenience. 



The particular deduction from these experiments appears 

 to be that coffee has an important action in preventing denu- 

 trition and emaciation. An illustration of this is seen, ac- 

 cording to the author, in the effect upon the urea. In one ex- 

 periment about half a grain of caffeine was consumed daily, 

 and the amount of urea was diminished twenty-eight per 

 cent., while an infusion of about two ounces of roast coffee 

 diminished it by twenty per cent. This is asserted to be the 

 result of very careful experiments of a physiologist upon 

 himself, proving that caffeine and roast coffee diminish the 

 oxidation of the system and temper the process of denutri- 

 tion. The excessive frequency and intensity of the beating 

 of the heart was also found to be reduced in several in- 

 stances. It is probable, according to the author, that a sim- 



