MISCELLANEOUS PLANTS 293 



used, as has tea in China, where the wild product is yet more 

 common than the cultivated, and where great quantities are con- 

 sumed, as well as exported to Europe, under the name of Para- 

 guay tea. It makes a pleasant drink as the writer remembers it 

 in its own country, though, of course, to one not "to the manner 

 born " it would be considered inferior to either tea or coffee. 



Plants grown for Sedative Effect 



In all countries and times the human animal seems not to 

 have been quite happy till he could either find or produce some- 

 thing that would work directly upon his nerves. And he does 

 not seem yet to have entirely freed himself from what must, 

 when considered in the light either of philosophy or of evolution, 

 be regarded as a confession of weakness. 



This craving exhibits itself in two directions : first, as a 

 stimulant, exciting the nerves to unusual activity, giving an arti- 

 ficial exhilaration, followed in ex-treme cases by a deep lethargy, 

 largely destitute of consciousness ; and second, something to 

 act as a sedative, dulling the sensibilities and giving a kind of 

 soothing freedom from care which is akin to sleep, yet without 

 loss of consciousness. 



Alcohol is the one great stimulating agent, and, as was once re- 

 marked by the late Professor Steel, who had traveled extensively 

 among the primitive peoples of many lands, no tribe is too stupid 

 or too lazy to make at least a dilute form of alcohol by the fer- 

 mentation of some kind of vegetable juice. 



For the sedative effects resort is had to a variety of vegetable 

 substances, which are widely cultivated and will continue to be, 

 at least until man pretty generally learns that it pays best in the 

 long run to maintain a normal existence day by day, and not to 

 tamper with the most delicate part of his anatomy, the nerves. 1 



1 It may be remarked in passing that the basis of all patent medicines is 

 either a stimulant by the use of alcohol, or a sedative through some of the 

 well-known materials that have a more or less pronounced stupefying effect. 

 If the nerves are stimulated, the patient seems to have a new lease of life ; if 



