THE LITTLE TEA BOOK 



and it is hard to say which were most 

 bitter, the friends or the foes of tea. 

 Maria Theresa's physician, Count 

 Belchigen, attributed the discovery 

 of a number of new diseases to the 

 debility born of daily tea-drinking. 

 Dr. Paulli denied that it had either 

 taste or fragrance, owing its reputa- 

 tion entirely to the peculiar vessels 

 and water used by the Chinese, so 

 that it was folly to partake of it, un- 

 less tea-drinkers could supply them- 

 selves with pure water from the 

 Vassie and the fragrant tea-pots of 

 G-nihing. This sagacious sophist 

 and dogmatizer also discovered that, 

 among other evils, tea-drinking de- 

 prived its devotees of the power of 

 expectoration, and entailed sterility ; 

 wherefore he hoped Europeans would 

 thereafter keep to their natural bev- 



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