INTRODUCTION OF TEA TO EUROPK. 103 



vital energ\', to strengthen the memor^■, stimulate the 

 faculties and to thoroughh' purify the blood. Those 

 sickening with fever were advised to drink off from fort}" 

 to llft^- cups of tea one after another. In the interesting 

 work of Le Grand dWuss^-, which first appeared in 17<^2, 

 and which relates the histor\' of the private life of the 

 French ("Ilistoire de la Vie Privee des Francais") we 

 read that tea was known in Paris in 1636 and soon 

 became ver\- popular because the Chancellor Seguier 

 gave it his patronage. It seems that a few people in 

 Paris were so misguided as to smoke tea in the same 

 wa^' as tobacco, and Dr. Bligny boasts that he even 

 made a preserve from it, a "destilliertes Wasser", and 

 two kinds of syrup. In 1700 tea drinking was alreadA' 

 universal in England and tea was taxed. German\' owes 

 the introduction of tea to the Dutch doctors of the 

 Great Elector. According to documents published h\ 

 Fli'ickiger, a handful of tea bought at the Apothecaries 

 of the to^\■n of Nordhausen in 1062, cost fifteen Gulden, 

 but in 1689 the same quantit\' cost onh' four Groschen 

 in Leipzig. As earh' as the latter half of the seventeenth 

 century- tea had become a common and favourite beverage 

 in Russia. It reached Russia, however, not from Western 

 Europe, but direct through the Asiatic Embassies, and was 

 consequently called "Tschai". This name corresponds to 

 that b\' which it was known among the Arabs in the eighth 

 centur^■. But in Poland, which was in direct communication 

 with the West, it was called "Herbata", from "herba theae''. 

 The most important constituent of the tea leaf is 

 Caffein. The same principle is contained in the coffee 



