Chapter M: FUSEE AUBLET, in his Observations on the Culture of Coffee, annexed

to the ingenious Mons. _Le Breton’s_ Paris translation of the third edition of this Treatise, says that a Mons. _de Clieux_ carried the first Coffee plant to Martinico in 1720; and that the French East-India Company sent some plants to the Isle of Bourbon in 1717; and that one plant only survived, which bore in 1720, and many were produced from it.

THE first plant in Jamaica was introduced by Sir _Nicholas Laws_, and planted at Townwell estate, now called Temple Hall, in Liguanea, belonging to Mr. _Luttrell_.--How its propagation has been extended since those periods, in the West Indies, is well known.

SOME writers imagine that there are several sorts of Coffee[25]; but the difference arises only from the soil, cultivation, curing, and keeping, and not from any difference in the species.

[25] _Geoffry_, among others, was mistaken in this point.

IF the Coffee in our West-Indian Islands be planted in a dry soil, and in a warm situation; if, after the trees have acquired a certain age, the ripe berries are collected with care and cleanliness, which will be small when dry, cream-coloured, and with a smooth polished surface, like those which come from Arabia; and if they are kept a proper time before they are used; this Coffee will have flavour and excellence equal to the best that is imported from Mocha.

BUT the time and labour necessary to produce Coffee of the best quality have discouraged our Planters from raising it at much expence; because, until lately, it has been subject to a precarious, or losing market. Therefore quantity, and large coarse berries of a green dingy cast, the produce of young trees, luxuriant soil, and little attention, has turned to better account than quality; as this produce, though unfit for the London market, has been bought up for the consumption of the Northern parts of Europe[26].

[26] Mr. _Fuller_ observes in his letter, “I would recommend to the
Planters, not to covet the production of the large berries, the
smallest being deemed the best by our buyers here, and fetching
the most money; perhaps not absolutely from its being of the best
quality, but because it admits of being mixed with the Mocha Coffee,
and sold as such.”

AFTER Coffee has received all the excellence it can from the Planter, it is a matter of great consequence, that proper care be taken in shipping it for Europe: it should not be put into parts of the vessel where it may be injured by dampness, or by the effluvia of other freight. Coffee-berries are remarkably disposed to imbibe exhalations from other bodies, and thereby acquire an adventitious and disagreeable flavour. Rum placed near to Coffee will in a short time so impregnate the berries, as to injure their flavour. It is said, that a few bags of pepper on board a ship from India, some years since, spoiled a whole cargo of Coffee[27].

[27] _Miller._

THE French are more attentive in this respect than the English; and indeed they omit nothing that can give their Coffee any advantage. But if their Coffee be superior to ours, it is the effect of more encouragement. The industry and genius of the French Coffee Planters have been cherished; ours have been restricted by a duty, which prevented the consumption of the article. Thus the spirit of cultivation has been checked, improvement retarded, and consequently the produce not brought to perfection.

THE chemical analysis of Coffee evinces that it possesses a great portion of mildly bitter, and lightly astringent gummous and resinous extract[28]; a considerable quantity of oil[29]; a fixed salt[30]; and a volatile salt[31].--These are its medicinal constituent principles.

[28] _Newman_ obtained eight ounces from sixteen ounces of roasted
Coffee, by aqueous and spirituous menstruums.

[29] _Bourdelin_ obtained six ounces six drams from two pounds and an
half of roasted Coffee: and _Houghton_, Phil. Trans. obtained two
ounces four drams two scruples from one pound of unroasted Coffee.
_Du Four_ obtained two ounces five drams.

[30] _Le Fevre_, _Newman_, _Lemery_, _Bourdelin_, obtained nine drams
and an half from two pounds and an half of roasted Coffee.

[31] _Floyer_, _Bourdelin_, obtained a volatile salt, that
effervesced strongly with spirit of salt.

THE intention of torrefaction is not only to make it deliver those principles, and make them soluble in water, but to give it a property it does not possess in the natural state of the berry.

BY the action of fire, its leguminous taste and the aqueous part of its mucilage are destroyed; its saline properties are created, and disengaged, and its oil is rendered empyreumatic.--From thence arises the pungent smell, and exhilarating flavour, not found in its natural state[32].

[32] There always prevailed a notion among the chemists, particularly
with _Paracelsus_ and his followers, that in the empyreumatic oils of
plants were many medicinal virtues undiscovered. The oil of Coffee,
in itself, is almost insipid.

ANIMAL oils are changed by fire in the same manner in broiled meats, and acquire that grateful odour so exciting to weak appetites.

IMITATIONS of Coffee have been procured from roasted beans, peas, wheat, and rye, with almonds; but the delicacy of the oil in Coffee, which the fire, in roasting, converts into its peculiar empyreuma, is not to be equalled.

THE roasting of the berry to a proper degree, requires great nicety: _Du Four_ justly remarks, that the virtue and agreeableness of the drink depend on it, and that both are often injured in the ordinary method. _Bernier_ says, when he was at _Cairo_, where it is so much used, he was assured by the best judges, that there were only two people in that great city, in the public way, who understood the preparing it in perfection[33].

[33] _Bernier’s_ Letter to _Du Four_.

IF it be under-done, its virtues will not be imparted, and in use it will load and oppress the stomach:--If it be over-done, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste, its virtues will be destroyed, and in use it will heat the body, and act as an astringent[34].

[34] “Cetera bonitas Caovæ præcipuè dependet à curiosa et exquisita
tostione.” _Ray._

FOURTEEN pounds weight of raw Coffee is generally reduced, at the public roasting houses in London, to eleven pounds by the roasting; for which the dealer pays seven pence half-penny, at the rate of five shillings for every hundred weight. In Paris, the same quantity is reduced to ten pounds and an half. But the roasting ought to be regulated by the age and quality of the Coffee, and by nicer rules than the appearance of the fumes, and such as are usually practised: therefore the reduction must consequently vary, and no exact standard can be ascertained. Besides, by mixing different sorts of Coffee together, that require different degrees of heat and roasting, Coffee has seldom all the advantages it is capable of receiving, to make it delicate, grateful, and pleasant. This indeed can be effected no way so well as by people who have it roasted in their own houses, to their own taste, and fresh as they want it for use.

THE closer it is confined at the time of roasting, and till used, the better will its volatile pungency, flavour, and virtues, be preserved.

COARSE, rank, new Coffee, is meliorated by being kept after it is roasted, before it is used.

THE influence which Coffee, judiciously prepared, imparts to the stomach, from its invigorating qualities, is strongly exemplified by the immediate effect produced on taking it, when the stomach is over-loaded with food, or nauseated with surfeit, or debilitated by intemperance, or languid from inanition.

TO constitutionally weak stomachs, it affords a pleasing sensation; it accelerates the process of digestion, corrects crudities, and removes the cholic, and flatulencies.

BESIDES its effect on the gastric powers, it diffuses a genial warmth that cherishes the animal spirits, and takes away the listlessness and languor[35], which so greatly embitter the hours of nervous people, after any deviation to excess, fatigue, or irregularity.

[35] _Baglivi._

THE foundation of all the mischiefs of intemperance is laid in the stomach; when that is injured, instead of preparing the food, that the lacteals may carry into the constitution sweet and wholesome juices to the support of health, it becomes the source of disease, and disperses through the whole frame the cause of decay.

FROM the warmth and efficacy of Coffee in attenuating the viscid fluids, and increasing the vigour of the circulation, it has been used with great success in some cases of fluor albus, and in the dropsy[36]; and also in worm complaints[37];--and in those camatose, anasarcous, and such other diseases as arise from unwholesome food, want of exercise, weak fibres, and obtruded perspiration.

[36] “C’est sans doute son fréquent usage qui garentit les Turcs de
l’hydropisie.” _Du Four_, p. 129.

[37] _Anthelminticum_ audit, et hinc pueris sæpe confertur, copiosius
vero haustum, parvos eos reddit, deoque non facile his ordinandum. Si
quis aliquot Cyathos decocti saturatioris hauriat, vermes plerumque
e ventriculo in intestina descendere experitur; si mox purgatio
propinetur, invisi hi hospites hac methodo expelluntur. _Linnæi_,
Amœnitat. Academ. Vol. VI. p. 178.

IN vertigo, lethargy, catarrh, and all disorders of the head from obstruction in the capillaries, long experience has proved it to be a powerful medicine[38]; and in certain cases of apoplexy, it has been found serviceable even when given in glysters, where it has not been convenient to convey its effects by the stomach. Mons. _Malebranche_ restored a person from an apoplexy by repeated glysters of Coffee[39].

[38] “La tête est la partie de tout le corps sur laquelle le Caffé
produit de plus considérables effets; car par son usage ordinaire, on
prévient presque surement l’apoplexie, la paralysie, la lethargie, et
presque toutes les autres maladies soporeuses.” _De Bleguy_, p. 180.

[39] Hist. de l’Acad. de Sciences, 1702.

THERE are but few people who are not informed of its utility for the head-ach; the steam sometimes is very useful to mitigate pains of the head.

In the West Indies, where the violent species of head-ach, such as cephalæa, hemicrania, and clavus, are more frequent, and more severe than in Europe, Coffee is often the only medicine that gives relief. Opiates are sometimes used, but Coffee has an advantage that Opium does not possess; it may be taken in all conditions of the stomach; and at all times by women, who are most subject to these complaints; as it dissipates those congestions and obstructions that are frequently the cause of the disease, and which Opium is known to increase, when its temporary relief is past[40].

[40] Ego cum Lugduni Batavorum studiis operam darem, per totum annum
Cephalæa miserè laboravi; et postquam potui copiose Teé, et præcipuè
quidem _Coffee_ quotidie sumendo assuevi, semper immunis ab ea vixi,
non tantúm sed ab omni alio incommodo, quamvis antea ita vixerim,
ut mortis haberet vices lenta quæ trahebatur mihi vita gementi, qui
per totum quinquennium cum longa morborum serie acriter conflictavi.
_Ray._

FROM the stimulant and detergent properties of Coffee, it may be used to an extent to be serviceable in all obstructions arising from languid circulation. It assists the secretions, promotes the menses, and mitigates the pains attendant on the sparing discharge of that evacuation.

In the West Indies, the chlorosis and obstructed menses are common among laborious negro females, exposed to the effects of their own carelessness, and the rigorous transitions of the climate; there strong Coffee is often employed as a deobstruent; which, drank warm in a morning fasting, and using exercise after it, has been productive of many cures[41]. From its possessing these qualities, _Geoffrey_ cautions pregnant women, and such as are subject to excessive menstruation, to use it in moderation.

[41] “Utuntur tamen ejus decocto ad roborandum ventriculum
frigidiorem, adjuvandamque concoctionem, et non minùs ad auferendas
a visceribus obstructiones; in tumoribusque hepatis lienifque
frigidis, et antiquis obstructionibus, feliciori cum successu
decoctum multos dies experiuntur. Quod etiam uterum maximè respicere
videtur, ipsum enim excalfacit, obstructionesque ab eo aufert, sic
enim in familiari usu est apud omnes Ægyptias, Arabasque mulieres,
ut semper, dum fluunt menses, ipsorum vacuationem, hujus decocti
ferventis multum paulatim sorbillantes, adjuvent. Ad promovendos
etiam, in quibus suppressi sunt, usus hujus decocti, purgato corpore
multis diebus, utilissimus est.” _P. Alpin._ Lib. de Plantis Ægypti,
cap. 16.----“Pellens est; qua ratione, non sine fructu, tanquam
emmenagogum, in menstruis suppressis adhibetur. _Linnæi_, Amœnitat.
Acad. Vol. VI. p. 179.

THE industrious overseers of plantations, and other Europeans employed in cultivation in the West Indies, who are exposed to the morning and evening dews, find great support from a cup of Coffee before they go into the field: it fortifies the stomach, and guards them against the diseases incident to their way of life; especially in clearing lands; or when their residence is in humid situations, or in the vicinity of stagnant water. Those who are imprudently addicted to intemperance find Coffee a benign restorer of the stomach, for that nausea, weakness, and disorderly condition, which is brought on by drinking bad fermented liquors, and new rum, to excess.

IN continued and remitting fevers in hot climates, it frequently happens, at the period when bark is indicated, that the stomach cannot retain it.--This is an embarrassment of great importance, in which the practitioner has an interval, only of a few hours, to decide on his patient’s fate.--Bark in substance is required to answer the intention; and here, as well as in many cases of intermittents, when every other mode of administering bark has proved abortive, Coffee has been found an agreeable and a successful vehicle.

IN obstinate intermittents, where a course of bark has been long continued, it seldom fails to increase those visceral obstructions which are incidental to the disease itself.

TO assist the bark in its operation, I have often used Coffee; and have known instances where it has removed slight intermittents; and for those obstructions, which the disease, or bark, or both, frequently leave after them, and which patients are often obliged to suffer, as the least evacuation brings on a return of fever, I have also recommended Coffee, to make a considerable portion in the diet, with advantage.

COFFEE having the property of promoting perspiration[42], it allays thirst and checks preternatural heat.

[42] _Leewenhoek_, _Huxham_.

Sir _John Chardin_, when in Persia[43], cured himself of a bloody flux by drinking four cups of hot Coffee, and going to bed, and covering himself well with bed clothes. But this cure was occasioned by the perspiration it produced; though he attributed it to some specific quality in the Coffee.

[43] Anno 1671.

THE great use of Coffee in France is supposed to have abated the prevalency of the gravel.--In the French Colonies, where Coffee is more used than in the English, as well as in Turkey, where it is the principal beverage, not only the gravel, but the gout, those tormentors of so many of the human race, are scarcely known[44].

[44] _Urinam_ copiose pellit, imprimis si aqua misceatur; quosdam
calculo obnoxios Halmiæ novimus, qui cyathum Coffeæ murrhinum vitro
aquæ frigidæ, libra una repleto, infundunt, idque horis consumunt
matutinis, qui unanimiter fatentur, quod vix aliud ipsis sit notum,
urinam et fabulum copiosius pellens. _Linnæi_, Amœnitat. Acad. Vol.
VI. p. 177.

TAVERNIER says, the Persians are totally unacquainted with the gout and gravel; and Mons. _Spon_, a celebrated Physician at Lyons, who had travelled in the East, says, these diseases are rarely met with in the Levant, which they attribute to the great use of Coffee in those parts of the world. But climate, I apprehend, which the encomiasts of Coffee will not admit, ought to be taken into the account.

DU FOUR relates, as an extraordinary instance of the effects of Coffee in the gout, the case of Mons. _Deverace_. He says, this gentleman was attacked with the gout at twenty-five years of age, and had it severely until he was upwards of fifty, with chalk stones in the joints of his hands and feet; but for four years preceding, the account of his case being given to _Du Four_, to lay before the publick, he had been recommended the use of Coffee, which he adopted, and had no return of the gout afterwards[45].

[45] “Elle est salutaire aux goutteux par l’expérience particulière
de nos goutteux, qui s’y sont habitués: car ils en tirent du moins
ce bénefice que leur accês sont moins fréquent et beaucoup plus
supportables.” _De Blegny_, p. 185. et 186.

COFFEE has been found useful in quieting the tickling vexatious cough that often accompanies the small pox[46], and other eruptive fevers.--A dish of strong Coffee without milk or sugar, taken frequently in the paroxysm of some asthmas, abates the fit; and I have often known it to remove the fit entirely. Sir _John Floyer_, who had been afflicted with the asthma from the seventeenth year of his age until he was upwards fourscore, found no remedy in all his elaborate researches, until the latter part of his life, when he obtained it by Coffee.

[46] _Huxham._

PREPARED strong and clear, and sweetened agreeably with sugar-candy, and diluted, while hot, with a great portion of boiling milk, it becomes an highly nutritious and balsamic diet; proper in such hectic and pulmonic complaints, where a milk diet is useful[47]; and is a great restorative to constitutions emaciated by the gout and other chronic disorders[48].

[47] “Elle est d’un effet merveilleux pour ceux qui ont la poitrine
naturellement foible, ou accidentellement affoiblie par le rheume,
par le toux inveterée, par une pulmonie naissante, et par ces autres
espèces de fluxions qui rendent la voix rauque, et qui causent
l’asthme et la courte haleine.” _De Blegny_, p. 189.

[48] This is the best method of preparing _Milk Coffee_. It may be
sweetened with good Muscovada sugar, in costive habits, or where
sugar-candy cannot be had.

NIEUHOFF, a German physician, in his account of the embassy from Holland to China in 1675, first described the advantage of milk Coffee in pulmonic complaints.

Mons. _Monin_, an eminent physician of Grenoble, performed many extraordinary cures with it among consumptive people, when a milk diet, asses milk, and the air of Montpellier, had proved ineffectual. He relates the following case of his wife; of whom, he says,--“she had been in a consumption for sixteen years, and was at the point of death lately with a peripneumony. The inflammation of the lungs was removed by the ordinary methods in eight days; there remained a very troublesome cough, an heat in the lungs, and quick pulse, with a great dryness of the skin, which made me apprehend she would fall again into her consumptive state. I prepared her by gentle purgatives and aperient medicines, as her bowels were in a bad state, and her spleen obstructed, and put her on a course of asses milk, which she took regularly for a month, but without the least success; her pulse remained the same, her cough was worse, she spit more, her complexion was yellow, sometimes greenish; she complained of heats, and oppressions of her breast, notwithstanding the exact regimen, and gentle purgatives repeated every week. Finding that the asses milk was useless, I again put her on a course of her former milk Coffee, of which she took about a quart every day for six weeks, purging her every ten or twelve days. This course was so favourable to her, that all the symptoms before-mentioned ceased in the first eight days; her appetite soon returned, and she grew more _en bon point_ than she had ever been in her life.”

LONG watching and intense study are wonderfully supported by it, and without the ill consequences that succeed the suspension of rest and sleep, when the nervous influence has nothing to sustain it.

THEVENOT says, “When merchants in Turkey have any letters to write, and intend to do it in the night-time, in the evening they take a dish or two of Coffee, which is good to hinder vapours, head-ach, and to take away sleepiness, &c.--In short, in the Turk’s opinion it is good against all maladies, and certainly it hath at least as much virtue as is attributed to tea; and as to its taste, by that time a man hath drank of it twice, he is accustomed to it, and finds it no longer unpleasant.”

WE are told, that travellers in Eastern countries, and messengers who are sent with dispatches, perform their tedious journies by the alternate effects of Opium and Coffee;--and that the dervises and religious zealots, in their abstemious devotions, support their vigils, through their nocturnal ceremonies, by this antisoporific liquor.

DU FOUR says, the poor people in Turkey use it through œconomy to save victuals; as frequently two or three cups of Coffee is their whole sustenance in the course of a day.

BERNIER says, that the Turks, who frequently subsist a considerable time upon Coffee only, look on it as an aliment that affords great nourishment to the body: for which reason, during the rigid fast of the _Ramadam_, or Turkish Lent, it is not only forbidden, but any person is deemed to have violated the injunctions of the Prophet, that has had even the smell of Coffee[49].

[49] Nous remarquerons, qu’ayant fait usage de cette boisson, nous
avons découvert qu’outre les qualités qu’on vient rapporter, elle a
celle de soutenir les forces contre l’inanition, en forte qu’étant
prise à jeun, on peut se passer plus long temps de nourriture, sans
en être incommodé. _Journ. des Sc._, 1716, p. 283.

BACON says, Coffee “comforts the head and heart, and helps digestion[50].” Dr. _Willis_ says, “being daily drank, it wonderfully clears and enlightens each part of the soul, and disperses all the clouds of every function[51].” The celebrated Dr. _Harvey_ used it often. _Voltaire_ lived almost on it. He told me, nothing exhilarated his spirits more than the smell of Coffee; for which reason he had, what he used in the day, roasted in his chamber every morning, when he lived at _Fernai_.--The learned and sedentary of every country have recourse to it, to refresh the brain, oppressed by study and contemplation[52].

[50] Cent. 8, Exp. 738. anno 1624.--_Bacon_ asserted this on the
authority of travellers, as Coffee was not then known in England.

[51] Pharmaceut. Rat. P. 1. Anno 1674. Coffee was then used in England.

[52] “Elle fortifie la mémoire et le jugement. Un aliment qui fortifie
puissamment toutes les actions naturelles.” _De Blegny_, p. 181, 184.

AMONG the many valuable qualities of Coffee, that of its being an antidote to the abuse of _Opium_ must not be considered as the least; for as mankind is not content with the wonderful efficacy derived from the prudent use of opium, the abuse of it is productive of many evils that are only remediable by Coffee.

THE diseases generally brought on by a continued course of excessive doses of Opium, are either loss of appetite, stupor, debility, loss of memory, melancholy, palsy, or dropsy:--and frequently the consequences of the necessary and temporary use of common doses of laudanum, are nausea, languor, giddiness of the head, cold sweats, head-ach, hysterics, and tremor.

VARIOUS have been the attempts of physicians and chemists to correct their favourite Opium, and to improve and separate its useful from its hurtful properties[53]; but their preparations have neither meliorated the simple juice of the vegetable, as the great _Sydenham_ asserts, nor have they taken away those properties to which its prejudicial effects are attributed.

[53] _Paracelsus_, _Helmont_, _Silvius_, and _Platerus._--The use of
Opium in the Lues Venerea is by no means a new discovery, as some
practitioners have lately thought. It has had its advocates and use,
like Guaiacum, and other diaphoretics. It was known to _Paracelsus_,
_Fernilius_, _Palmarius_, _Willis_, _Paulli_, &c.

THERE never has been, as far as we know, any preparation or combination with Opium, from the days of _Mithridates_ to the present, that could be relied on, to counteract the ill effects of its first operations, in many constitutions; or to prevent those disagreeable after-operations so much complained of, in almost every subject and disease.

SUCH a preparation would indeed be a large contribution to the Materia Medica, and would make a considerable figure in the practice of physic. But this may never be accomplished; it may not be in nature; the defect may be the inherent imperfection of the vegetable, and inseparable from it;--as in the moral world we find the brightest virtues may be shaded with alloy:--if so, it will yet be some consolation, that we are able to mitigate those ills which we cannot prevent.

EVERY author who mentions Coffee, allows that it possesses singular power in counteracting the hypnotic, or sleepy effects of Opium: this is the only virtue assigned to it, in regard to Opium; as if the influence which Coffee exerts on the system, to produce that effect, could be directed to no purpose, when these contradictions were not employed in opposition, to rob each other of their attributes.

CONFIRMED by many observations, I believe that Coffee, besides being the best corrector of Opium, is the best medicine to alleviate the mischief it produces, that has yet been discovered, and that the operations of common doses of Opium may be checked by it almost at pleasure.

THE heaviness, head-ach, giddiness, sickness, and nervous affections, which attack the patient in the morning, who has taken an opiate at night, are abated by a cup or two of strong Coffee.

IN Military Hospitals in hot climates, recourse is often had to large and repeated doses of Opium; from which I have frequently observed, that the retention of the stomach of the patient has been greatly injured; the secretion of urine impeded, or the bladder affected by a paralysis:--even these effects have been subdued by a few cups of strong Coffee.

THE general opinion is erroneous, though of long standing, that the _Turks_ use Coffee, exclusive of dietetic purposes, only against the sleepy effects of Opium.

The _Turks_, as well as the _Persians_ and _Indians_, take Opium as a cordial[54], to invigorate them for the temporary enjoyment of amorous pleasures, and to enable them to support fatigue, and to stimulate their nerves to the exertions of courage and enterprize[55]. But when the desired effects of this cordial are over, languor, lassitude, and dejection of spirits succeed.--It is for these indispositions, that Coffee is so medicinally necessary to the _Turks_, and they use it as their principal remedy.

[54] “Præstantissimum sit remedium cardiacum, unicum penè dixerim,
quod in natura hactenus est repertum.” _Sydenham._

[55] _Mandelslo’s_ Voyages and Travels into the East, Lib. I.
_Bellonius_, Lib. III. cap. 15. _Erastus_, Disp. de Sapor. et de
Narcot. _Georg. Andreæ_, Itiner. Ind. Lib. II. c. 9. _J. J. Saar._
Itiner. Ind. p. 11. _Fogolius_ de Turcarum Nepenthe. _Sandy’s_
Travels, Lib. I. p. 66.

BUT while this unpleasing review of Opium is presented to our contemplation, let us not forget the benefit which mankind derives from that inestimable medicine.

IF the _Silphium_ was held in veneration, stamped on coins, and hung up in temples[56]; if the _Mallow_ was dignified with the name of Sacred[57]; if a statue was erected to the _Lettuce_[58];--what honours are not due to the POPPY, whose pure and unadulterated juice possesses power to relax the whole force of animal spasm; to arrest the determination of the fluids and vital energy on particular parts, which often tends to the sudden dissolution of the frame; to relieve corporal pain by tranquillity, and mental affliction by sleep[59]. These are the unrivalled virtues of the POPPY, so highly distinguished by the Creator, and whose excellence no human praise can reach.

[56] _Plin. Hist. Nat._ Lib. XIX. c. 3. _Heschius_, Βάτἰς σίλφιον
silphion, _Spanheim_, de usu et præst. Numis. Dissert. 4.

[57] By _Pythagoras_.

[58] By _Augustus_. Several of the _Valerian_ family ennobled their
name with that of _Lactucinii_. _Plin._

[59] “Tam homini quam morbo conciliat.” _Paracel._

IT is not to be expected that Coffee should escape objections, when the virtues of Opium could not secure that from censure and condemnation. Among the furious enemies of Opium was Professor _Stahl_, of Hall in Germany[60]; and among those of Coffee was _Simon Paulli_ of Rostock. As the former could see nothing but the mischiefs of Opium, so the latter was blind to the virtues of Coffee. But _Paulli_ founded his prejudices against Coffee, as he had his prejudices against Tea, Chocolate, and Sugar--not on experience, but on anecdotes, that had been picked up by hasty travellers, which had no other foundation than absurd report and conjecture[61]. Unacquainted with the real properties of Coffee, his imagination supplied him with fictitious ones; and classed with articles with which it has no more affinity than they have analogy to each other[62], he assigned to it those qualities which should affect the body, according to some theory of _Galen_ which had misled him, to correspond with the account he had read of its supposed effects on Sultan _Mahomet Casnin_, a despot of Persia; who, it is said, from an excessive fondness of Coffee, had sotted away the vigour of his constitution[63]. But chemistry and experience have brought the subject into light, and _Paulli’s_ baseless fabric has vanished.

[60] De Opij Impostura.

[61] _Olearius_, _Martinius_, _Garranciers_, &c.

[62] “Instar Rutæ, Agni Casti, Camphoræ, Theè, Coffee, Chocoladæ, et
similium omnis,” &c. _S. Paulli_, Quadrip. Botan. p. 396.

[63] This story is related in the Travels of the Ambassadors from the
Duke of Holstein into _Muscovy_ and _Persia_, Lib. VI. It originated
from a complaint made against _Casnin_ by his wife. This lady was of
a different opinion from the Marquis _de Langle_, who, in his _Voyage
en Espagne_, says,--“Le Caffé égaye, exalte, électrife; à l’homme qui
a pris du Caffé en abondance, il ne manque plus qu’une femme, une
plume, et l’encre.”

SUCH has been the fate of _Fernelius’s_ declamations against mercury; such _Guy Patin’s_ against antimony; and such _James_ the First’s, and the Abbot _Nissens’s_ nonsense against tobacco[64].

[64] The Abbot _Nissens_ maintained, that the Devil first brought
tobacco into Europe.