194 FLORA HOMCOPATHICA. 
grown in other countries. The Dutch were the first to attempt 
to transplant and grow its seed, as Boerhaave, in his Index 
to the Leyden Garden, informs us that Nicholas Witsen, 
burgomaster of Amsterdam, and governor of the East India 
Company, instructed Van Hoorn, governor of Batavia, to pro- 
cure from Mocha the Coffee berries and grow them in that 
colony ; this was in 1690. In 1714, the magistrates of Amster- 
dam sent a plant to Louis XIV., which is supposed by Du Tour 
to be the parent of all that has been cultivated in France and 
in the French West India islands. In 1722, the French 
governor of Cayenne procured a plant (it is said by stealth) 
from the Dutch colony of Surinam, which in 1725 had pro- 
duced many thousands. In the year 1732, Coffee was culti- 
vated in Jamaica, and an act passed to encourage its growth in 
that island. 
For medicinal purposes it has not been in much request, 
except as a dietetic. Lord Bacon says: “It comforteth the 
brain and head, and helpeth digestion, and condenseth the 
spirits, and makes them strong and alacre.” 
Lewis (Ezp. Hist. of Mat. Med.) says: “It strengthens the 
stomach, promotes secretions; is said to be serviceable in 
phlegmatic, corpulent habits; but injurious in thin habits and 
bilious temperaments, in melancholic and hypochondriacal dis- 
orders, and to persons subject to hemorrhages.” It has been 
employed to palliate and dispel fits of periodical asthma; also 
in rheumatic affections. Atonic gout. Epilepsy. Intermittent 
fevers. Nervous and typhus fevers. Hysteria. Hysterical 
spasms and headache. Different kinds of toothache, and in 
inflammations of the gums. Spasmodic and flatulent colic. 
Spasms of the stomach. Diarrhea, combined with rheumatic 
affections. Constipation. Menstrual colic. Whooping cough 
in the convulsive stage. Bad breath. And as an antidote to 
the effects of many vegetable poisons, as Belladonna, Cicuta 
virosa, Acid. hydrocyanicum, Hyoscyamus, Lolium temulentum, 
Moschus, Opium, Secale cornutum, Stramonium, etc. 
