168 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
flakes. Cocoa. shells are the husks alone, from which a 
decoction is occasionally made as a beverage. Each of the 
above substances (the beans or seeds, the kernels, and the 
shells) contains the alkaloid theobromine, and is_ therefore 
of use as a substitute for tea, or coffee. 
Chocolate is the Cocoa powder mixed as described, whilst 
still containing the oil, ground up together with the sugar and 
flavourings (thoroughly incorporated) in a mill, and pressed 
into cakes, slabs, and fanciful devices. A beverage concocted 
therefrom was the customary breakfast drink in the early part 
of the eighteenth century. By the Tatler of that date we are 
told that the fops of the period took their Chocolate in their 
bedrooms, clad in their dressing-gowns, (“‘and green tea two 
hours after”). Chocolate was first used as a beverage in England 
about 1657, and was very popular in the time of Charles the 
Second. But Cacao (the Chocolate fruit) had been employed 
for making a beverage therefrom by the Mexicans for ages 
before their country was conquered by the Spaniards. 
There are four widely-separated vegetable products which 
are variously comprehended under the names Cacao, Cocoa, 
Coca, and Cocoa. Concerning the first of these, Cacao, a full 
explanation has been given above. The second, or Cocoa-nut, 
is produced by the Cocoa-nut Palm, and is not connected in any 
way with the beverages Chocolate, and Cocoa (properly Cacao). 
This is a large tree bearing bunches of Cocoa-nuts (filled with 
a milk) from ten to twenty in number, within rough, fibrous, 
woody outer coats. The third, Coca, or Cuca, is produced from 
a shrub, native in the Andes, with brilliant green leaves, which 
create, when chewed, a sense of warmth in the mouth, whilst 
serving remarkably to stave off hunger, and to confer a wonderful 
power of enduring bodily fatigue. About the fourth, Coco, 
very little is known ; it yields a root which, when suitably cooked, 
is not unlike the sweet potato. 
Again, the Kola, or Java nut (Sterculia acuminata), is a tree 
of Western Africa, producing leaves which are now employed 
to a large extent as a nervine stimulant, and with marvellous 
powers of enabling fatigue to be sustained for a long time 
together. But during the stage of subsequent reaction the 
vital powers sometimes become much depressed, and the heart’s 
action disturbed. Kola contains a considerably larger amount 
of caffeine than is found in the finest Mocha coffee. This caffeine 
