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[April, 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Coffee and Tea. A Ledture given at the Parkes Museum on 
December 6th, 1883. By G. V. Poore, M.D. London : 
H. K. Lewis. 
In these reforming days coffee and tea are pronounced no less 
pernicious than wines and malt liquors. Even a draught of 
spring-water is forbidden us, and we are told by meddling inno- 
vators that hot water, heated just so strongly as not to prove an 
emetic, is to be the “ drink of the future ’’—poor future ! Dr. 
Poore, however, has the courage not to regard this clamour.* 
He speaks out boldly in praise of tea and coffee, and does not 
even pass a sweeping condemnation on alcoholic beverages. He 
tells his hearers that a properly controlled appetite or instindt is 
as safe a guide in the matters of diet as a physiologist or a 
moralist. Safer by far, we should add, than the latter ! We 
read here further : — “ The argument is often put forward that as 
the lower animals do without tea, coffee, &c., so ought we • but 
to this I would humbly oppose the fa dt that we are not lower 
animals, that we have minds as well as bodies, and that since 
these substances have the property of enabling us to bear our 
worries and fatigues let us accept them, make rational use of 
them, and be thankful.” 
We should be the last to maintain that a regimen fitted for one 
species is all sufficient for another. We fully recognise the fadt 
that man— modern man, and perhaps most of all English and 
American man has, by a curiosa infelicitas, placed himself in 
abnormal conditions, so that what is natural is no longer the 
question. Perhaps when the “ equal rights ” of the lower ani- 
mals have been acknowledged,— when “ national conscience ” 
i.e., the exigencies of party, has led to their enfranchisement — 
and when they have been handed over to the tender mercies’ of 
the Committee of Council on Education or the Science and Art 
Department, they too will find the necessity of tea, coffee or 
even hashish. Meantime we submit that, like ourselves they 
have “ minds as well as bodies.” J 
Dr. Poore describes the peculiar physiological effedts of tea 
and coffee, and shows how completely they differ from those of 
alcohol. He discusses the relative dietetic value of a cup of tea 
as compared with a cup of coffee, pronouncing the latter to have 
doujle the value of the former. But this conclusion is based 
