FOOD. 213 



After alcohol come the active principles of tea, coffee, and 

 similar drinks: theine, cafeine, theobromine, coumarine 

 (tonka bean), the principle of Peruvian coca. 1 This latter 

 substance appears to affect the muscular system especially, 

 while the former have more influence on the nervous sys- 

 tem. Messengers, travellers, and workmen have found that 

 by chewing the leaves of the erythroxylum coca they 

 could dispense with any solid or liquid food for one or two 

 days : these leaves allay hunger and thirst, and sustain the 

 strength. This is the reason that the Peruvians deified this 

 tree, leaves of which were afterwards employed by the Incas for 

 money. Ch. Gazeau, 2 however, maintains that this so-called 

 power of fasting is only anesthesia of the stomach and oeso- 

 phagus, and that the person is autophagus, and in a state of 

 inanition without being aware of it. But as hunger is a 

 universal sensation of the system, it is scarcely possible to 

 maintain this theory, in the face of the well-known instances 

 of nutrition being kept up by coca as well as by alcohol. 

 The action of these latter substances cannot be explained by 

 referring it to the presence of nitrogen in their composition and 

 regarding them as azotizing aliments, the plastic aliments of 

 Liebig. Cafeine, theine, etc., contain a large quantity of nitro- 

 gen, but their composition closely resembles that of the uric 

 acid, xnnthine an<l hypoxanthine, all of which are excrementi- 

 tious products or waste from the organism : it thus appears that 

 theine, cafeine, etc., merely pass through the organism, and re- 

 appear in the excreta, and this has been proved by experiment. 



Liebig's extract of meat must also be classed among the eco- 

 nomical aliments (aliments (Tepargne), if, indeed, this product 

 can be said to have any alimentary utility at all. This extract 

 is now shown to be in no way nutritive. The nitrogenous 

 crystallizable principles which it contains are no more nutritive 

 than theine or cafeine, etc. ; the only use of this extract is that 

 of a slight stimulant from the salts which it contains (nearly 

 one-fifth of its weight). In short, Hepp and Miiller's experi- 

 ments (These de Paris, 1871) on animals, seem not only to 

 show the uselessness of this extract as an article of food, but 

 also to ascribe to it a poisonous effect, when taken in large 



1 Ch. Marvaud, " Etude de Physiologie Therapeutique, Effets 

 Physiologiques, et Therapeutiques des Aliments d'Epargne ou 

 Antideperditeurs. Alcool, Cafe, The, Coca, etc." Paris, 1871. 



8 Ch. Gazeau, " Nouvelles Recherches Experiinentales sur la 

 Pharmacologie, la Physiologie, et la Therapeutique de la Coca." 

 hese de doctorat, Paris, 1870. 







