190 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ical labor is almost nil, resolving itself into easy movements of the 

 arms, which require more of attention and skill than of strength. 

 Their daily diet contains more than 16 grammes of azote and 475 of 

 carbon. Now it must be added that the miner, whose diet is appar- 

 ently as poor as we have described it, is a most energetic workman ; 

 that when French miners, who nourish themselves much more abun- 

 dantly, attempt to work in the Charleroi mines, they are soon com- 

 pelled to withdraw, not being able to keep pace with the Belgian 

 workman in the execution of his task. 



"It is to tbe coffee alone that we can attribute this possibility of 

 contenting tbemselves with a diet which children would find insuffi- 

 cient; and it is not a question here of nutritious substance, for the anal- 

 ysis demonstrates that the coffee constitutes no more than one thirty- 

 fifth of the nutritious properties of the aliment. It has thus other prop- 

 erties, of which careful account must be taken. Does it satisfy the di- 

 gestive functions? Does it cause a more complete assimilation of the 

 elements? Or rather does it not retard the mutation of those organs 

 which do not then require so great a consumption of materials to repair 

 or support them ? According to this hypothesis, coffee would not nour- 

 ish, but would prevent loss of substance." M. Gasparin then shows, 

 from certain tables, that the waste in liquid excretion is less when cof- 

 fee is drank than at other times, a fact which to some extent confirms 

 his hypothesis. " We know r ," continues he, " how sober people are 

 who drink much coffee. The prodigious abstinence of the caravans, 

 the slightly nutritive regimen of the Arabs, come with all the authority 

 of experience in support of the effects attributed to this beverage ; and 

 the distribution of coffee to the French troops during their fatiguing 

 marches in Algeria is regarded by the officers as one of the best means 

 of enabling the troops to support them." " Other substances must 

 have analogous effects with those of coffee ; we may mention the use 

 of alliaceous bulbs in the South of Europe. On the other hand, M. 

 Baral has recently shown that the use of salt very considerably aug- 

 ments the proportion of urea and of uric acid in the urine, thus produc- 

 ing entirely contrary effects to those of coffee. The easy circumstan- 

 ces of the population accustomed to the coffee regimen does not admit 

 of a doubt. The only poor in the country are those whom accidental 

 wounds, too frequent in the mines, deprive of the power of working. 

 An old foreman, who knows the district well, and has been himself a 

 laborer, informed me that a miner, with his wife and six children, lives 

 on his daily earnings of two francs without making debts." 



These researches may have very important consequences upon the 

 fate of populations, and should be seriously considered by chemists, 

 medical men, and economists. If it were proved, that, without injury to 

 health, or to the development and continuance of strength, the use of 

 coffee enables a man to be content with a much less abundant nourish- 

 ment, it would be less difficult to provide for times of scarcity, and the 

 importance of extending the use of this beverage would be too clear- 

 ly understood for it to be oppressed with a heavy duty, which would 

 be a real tax on an object of general consumption. Chemist, June. 



