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breakfast, which many, when the weather permits it, 

 take in open air. 



Most people drink coffee or chocolate. Without 

 reprobating these two articles , I shall only observe 

 that coffee aggravates hepatic disorders , attended 

 with a disposition to inflammation, particularly when 

 the presence of gall-stones excites pain or irritation 5 

 it produces in the liver a burning and pungent sen- 

 sation, which often disappears as soon as patients 

 adopt some milder mode of breakfasting, such as 

 soup, an infusion of balm, or other harmless beverage. 

 Coffee, in one word, should never be allowed to in- 

 valids, whose abdominal organs give such signs of 

 inflammation or sensibility to the touch, as to re- 

 quire leeches, or any other part of the antiphlogistic 

 treatment, so often necessary with our patients. 



Chocolate does not produce the same irritative 

 effects as coffee , so remarkable for the subtility of 

 its aromatic principles, and still less a plain decoction 

 of cocoa; but few people digest well and relish 

 chocolate for any length of time , as they do coffee 

 or tea. 



Tea has been in general proscribed in most Ger- 

 man watering-places, at least in those of Bohemia. 

 Not being a national beverage, physicians and patients 

 have so seldom a personal experience of it, that in 

 the numberless works published on mineral waters, 

 so minute on other articles of diet, nothing or very 

 little is said about tea. That infusion having been 

 found incompatible with the use of more essentially 



