7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mon experience that beverages which in quantity retard digestion 

 have to be avoided altogether by such persons or partaken of very 

 sparingly. 



In the dietetic use of wines the writer of this article has constantly 

 had occasion to make the observation that those wines agree best and 

 are most useful which are absorbed and eliminated from the system 

 with the greatest rapidity, as tested by the increase of the renal secre- 

 tions, and he has been led to the practical conclusion that this is the 

 best criterion of the suitability of any particular wine to any particu- 

 lar constitution. If the effect of different wines on notoriously gouty 

 persons be carefully observed, it will be found that some can drink 

 champagne (in moderation, of course) with impunity, especially if a 

 small quantity of an effervescing alkaline water be added to it, while 

 claret will at once provoke some manifestations of gout ; others, who 

 are unable to drink champagne without provoking a gonty paroxysm, 

 will often be able to drink a mature, fine, soft claret even with advan- 

 tage ; others will support hock well, and a few can drink fine sherries 

 and ports in small quantities ; but in all it will be found that the test 

 of the suitability of the particular wine to the particular constitution 

 is its susceptibility to rapid elimination and vice versa. 



It has occurred also to the writer to make many observations as 

 to the circumstances under which tea and coffee are found to agree or 

 disagree with different persons ; in the first place, as Sir W. Roberts 

 has pointed out, tea, if taken at the same time as farinaceous food, is 

 much more likely to retard its digestion and cause dyspepsia than if 

 taken a little time after eating ; and the custom adopted by many 

 persons at breakfast, for instance, of eating first and drinking their 

 tea or coffee afterward is a sensible one ; so also it is better to take 

 one's five-o'clock tea without the customary bread-and-butter or cake 

 than with it. 



Indeed, while there is little that can be said against a cup of hot 

 tea as a stimulant and restorative, when taken about midway between 

 lunch and dinner, and without solid food, it may, on the other hand, 

 be a fruitful cause of dyspepsia when accompanied at that time with 

 solid food. It is also a curious fact that many persons with whom 

 tea, under ordinary circumstances, will agree exceedingly well, will 

 become the subjects of a tea dyspepsia if they drink this beverage at 

 a time when they may be suffering from mental worry or emotional 

 disturbance. 



Moreover, it is a well-recognized fact that persons who are prone to 

 nervous excitement of the circulation and palpitations of the heart 

 have these symptoms greatly aggravated if they persist in the use of 

 tea or coffee as a beverage. The excessive consumption of tea among 

 the women of the poorer classes is the cause of much of the so-called 

 " heart-complaints " among them : the food of those poor women 

 consists largely of starchy substances (bread-and-butter chiefly), to- 



