CHEMICAL, MEDICAL AND DIETICAL PROPERTIES. 21 7 



Lettson was the first medical writer who attempted to 

 give the public a reasonable and scientific account of tea, 

 but even his fears of its abuse ran away with his judg- 

 ment. The poet who commends " the cup that cheers, 

 but not inebriates," must have been startled if Lettson's 

 pamphlet ever fell into his hands, at the assertion " that 

 the growth of this pernicious custom (drunkenness) is 

 often owing to the weakness and debility of the system 

 brought on by the daily habit of drinking tea," and that 

 " the trembling hand seeks relief in some cordial in order 

 to refresh and excite again the enfeebled system, whereby 

 such persons fall into the habit of intemperance." Here 

 assuredly the exception must have been taken for the 

 rule, that tea may be so abused as to create a craving for 

 alcoholic stimulants is unquestionable, but that at any 

 period of its history its abuse has been so general as to 

 become the main cause of intoxication may be safely 

 denied. On the contrary, it was for a long time looked 

 upon as the great means by which intemperance was to 

 have been banished from society. Again, if there be 

 any truth in this charge, why is it that the Chinese and 

 Japanese, who are the greatest and most inveterate tea- 

 consumers in the world for centuries, using it in season 

 and out, are yet the most temperate ? It is, however, 

 admitted that the tremblings and other nervous effects 

 produced by tea on brokers and professional testers, 

 liquor is too frequently resorted to as an offset, and that 

 by the practice of some tea drinkers of the absurd and 

 dangerous Russian and English customs of adding vodki, 

 gin or other alcoholic stimulant to the "cup of tea," a 

 habit is oftentimes acquired which can never afterwards 

 be relinquished. Neither is it true, as alleged by 

 Lettson, that the use of tea has been the cause of the 

 increase of nervous and kindred complaints in colleges 



