342 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1881. 
Liebig say? : " We shall never know how men were 
first led to the use of coffee, but that we may consider 
the article as remarkable for its action on the brain, 
and the substance of the organs of motion, and as an 
element of food for organs as yet unknown, which are 
destined to convert the blood into nervous substance, 
and thus recruit the energy and the nervous moving, 
and thinking faculties." 
The medicinal effects of coffee are very great. In 
intermittent fever I have used it with the happiest 
effect, in cutting short the attack, and if properly 
managed is better in many cases than the sulphate of 
quinine. In that low state ot intermittent, as found 
on ihe binks of the Mississippi River and other 
malarial districts, accompanied with enlarged spleen 
and torpid liver, when judiciously administered it is 
one of the surest remedies. In the^e cases it should 
be given in a decoction, made with four ounces of 
well roasted and ground coffee, boiled in a quart 
(16 ounces) of water, in a covered vessel, down to 
half a pint (4 ounces), and two table-spoonfuls given 
hot every two hours, commencing six hours before 
the expected attack, and keeping (he patient well 
covered in bed. It has been found that in typhus 
fever, coffee increases the elimination of urea, and so 
far purifies the blood without increasing the destruct- 
ive metamorphosis of tissue, and that it lessens coma 
and low delirium. In yellow fever, from a long ex- 
perience, I consider coffee as my chief reliance, after 
other necessary remedies have been administered; it 
restrains tissue change, and thus becomes a conservator 
of force in that state in which the nervous system 
tends to collapse, because the blood has become im- 
pure ; it sustains the nervous power until the depu- 
ration and reorganization of the blood are accomplished, 
and has the advantage over other stimulants in in- 
ducing no injurious secondary effects. In spasmodic 
asthma its utility is well established, whooping cough, 
stupor, lethargy, etc. 
In the hsyterical attacks of some females, for which 
the physician can form no diagnosis or cause, for the 
peculiar and eccentric symptoms manifested ; a scream- 
ing, crying, staring, kicking, with no coherent answer 
for the medical adviser, at the same time with an 
evident tendency to act the persecuted saint — give 
her a cup of well-made, strong, black coffee, she 
becomes quiet, revives, smiles benignly, as if she had 
swallowed a panacea that had suddenly delivered 
her from the clutches of the imps of Satan, and wafted 
her from all the miseries of a condemned and tortured 
spirit, to the Elysian fields of Honris. We have used 
it as a remedy in croup, diphtheria, nephritis, chronic 
diarrhea, etc. In poisoning from opium it is well- 
known as the best remedy, and always on hand. 
Hayne says: — "That in a case of violent, spasmodic 
disease, attended with short breath, palpitation of 
heart, and a pulse so much increased in frequency 
that it could scarcely be counted, immediate relief 
-was obtained from a cup of coffee, after the most 
powerful antispasmodics had been used in vain for 
several hour?," etc. 
After a h ar y meal a cup of coffee will relieve that 
sense of oppression so apt to be experienced, and 
enable the stomach to perform its offices with com- 
parative facility. 
In fact, coffee carries healing on its wings. It is 
opposed to malaria, to all noxious vapors ; as a disin- 
fectant it has wonderful powers ; as an instantaneous 
deodorizer it has no equal, for the sick room, the 
fetid odors arising from cutaneous exhalations are 
immediately neutralised, by simply passing a chafing 
di-h with burning coffee grains through the room. 
It may bo urged that an article, possessing such 
powers and capacity for such energetic action, must 
Be injurious as an article of diet of habitual employ- 
ment, and not without deleterious, properties, but I 
have never noticed- any corresponding nervous dis- 
arrangement after its effects have disappeared, as is 
seen in narcotics and other stimulants. The action 
imparted to the nerves is natural and healthy, and I 
must positively- deny that the habitual use of the 
article is injurious. 
Habitual coffee drinkers generally enjoy good health 
and live to a good old age. Some of the oldest 
persons I have ever known, have used it from earliest 
infancy, without feeling any depressing reaction, such 
as is produced by alcoholic stimulants. 
In Porto Rico our fairest part of creation, at Ihe 
tenderest age, have been induced to forget tl.e delici- 
ous draught from the maternal fountain, by 
the substitution of a decoction of coffee, which soon 
becomes the daily b-verage.— Mayaguez, Porto Rico, 
1881. — American Journal. 
FERTILITY. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "FIELD/' 
Sir,— Your correspondent R. W. M. (See page 299, 
T. A.) accuses me of being too hasty in putting for- 
ward my views on the subject of fertility. 
I have been conducting experiments now for more 
than forty years, and the results have furnished me 
with data that may surely justify my giving an 
opinion upon a subject of great difficulty and im- 
portance, without incurring the reproach of undue 
haste. 
One of my hobbies has been, I admit, to give a 
scientific explanation of the principles of a rotation 
of crops. I wish I could think that I had ridden 
the subject to death. 
The question with regard to the source of the nitro- 
gen in leguminous plants is not likely to be settled 
during my life, at all events ; but I have more faith 
in the answer being obtained from my own fields 
than elsewhere. 
The idea that red clover obtains its nitrogen from 
the air, and not from the soil, is so firmly estab- 
lished in the minds of agriculturists, that, even if the 
evidence of this plant obtaining its nitrogen from the 
soil were perfectly clear and distinct, a long time 
would elapse before this view would be generally 
accepted. At the present time I have no such absol- 
ute evidence to bring forward, but the general tend- 
ency of all the Rothamsted investigations, taken col- 
lectively point 1 " in this direction. 
It may possibly happen that, in considering the 
soil to be the source of the nitrogen of leguminous 
plants, practical farmers may arrive at an explanation 
of many things in agriculture which at present they 
find very perplexing ; and I should not be surprised 
if their verdict were given before science has, by its 
slower but more certain methods of investigation, 
established its own conclusions. 
All I can say is that the conclusions to which I 
have come are different from those which I should 
have preferred, and I shall not regret, when time has 
settled the question, if the result should prove that 
I have been mistaken. J, B. Lawes. 
CINCHONA IN COORG. 
Mercaea, 22nd August. 
The steadiness and attention which this product is 
meeting in this country augurs well for its future 
success, and the day is not far distant. when there 
will be large supplies of a rich bark, holding its own 
in London against that sent from other parts of the 
world ; for in the course of two or three years at 
the most, there will be many acres of cinchona trees 
of sufficient growth to be stripped or barked. 
Cinchona is not ,a new industry here, for as far 
back as the year 1S65, a healthy movement was made 
by a private firm to plant different parts of the 
