Sunbury American and Shamokin journal. [volume] (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848, 1846-09-19
From the Water-Cure Journal.
TEA A POSITIVE POISON.

ii may be said perhaps, to treat oi ten as both
medicine and q poison. is to make a distinction
without difference. since every efficient med
icine is poison of course. There is truth in
tho suggestion nevertheless. it is more conve.
nient to arrange my thoughts on the subject
under Two seperste heads.
One evidence that tea s poisonous. is found
in the fact that, like alcoho, stramonium, bella.
dons. and many other medicines, it produces
its specific disense-- the tea disease. This
part of our subject will be hest illustrated by
the experiments and deductions of Mr.. John
Cole, distinguished member of the Royal
College Of Surgeons in London.
Ir. Cole does not, indeed, attempt TO show
that every tea drinker has the tea disease a
point as difficult, to es'ablisi, as that every one
who uses alcohol drinks Of any kind has the
drunkard's disease. All who use tea however,
are on the high road 70 the tea disease, Just
as every dram drinker, and in ,ro,h every wine,
cider and beer drinker, is on the road to deliri-
um fremens. r
There is one thing. moreover, which seems
q little peculiar in relation to the effects of tea.
Though it disturbs, mos, readily, those consti.
tutions whose tone has been lowered from the
healthy standard, by fatigue. debility. loss of
blood, &c, yet it has also the power, when Ia.
ken a long time in excessive quantity, Of re-.
ducing the healthy constitution to that state in
which il becomes accessible TO its own deleteri.
ous influence. The following is his descrip-
ton of the progress Of the disease. in those
whore systems were arcndy prepared 10 be in.
juriously affected by il:
"In longer ora shorter time after taking
the beverage, (from a few minutes TO two or
three hours,) an uncomfortable feeling arises in
the stomach-a craving, sinking empiiness-
which soon acquires degree Of intensity that
is almost nsupportabe. The hunger.lke gna.
ing and craving are described as being 10 the
last degree painful to endure. The stomach
being full, has no effect in preventing its acces.
sion neither does eating relieve it. This is
often oil that is felt for long time (: but by de
grees huttering. ss ofa bird, in the leh side,
is superadded; and feeling of fulness pervsdes
the chest, with breaihless and frequent sighing.
The fi,lness is more especially felt about the
clavicles, (or collar bones, and the root of the
neck, -.
"When black tea or coffee has been taken,
considerable excitement often ushers in thi.
succession OF phenomena the face become:
! flushed, the eyes sparkle with unusual brill
aGce. all the earlier effects of in'oxication from
alcohol are observabe--the pulse being full ant
throbbing. and considerable quickcned. /
green tea have been taken, the previous cx
citement is iess, or perhaps not at all percepti
BILE; the skin SOON becomes pale, the eyes be
come sunken, the pulse feeble, quick and Aut
tering.
"Whichever may have been taken, the
hands and teet often become cold as marble, an,
bedewed with a clammy sweat. Efforts I
warm them are made in vain. even in the hot
test weather feeling Of coldness and NUM-
ness also invades the back part of the head.
"Ths is the milder from of the disease, (if
may so term t,) the one which is most common
ly seen but occasionally a variety of aggravu
ted symptoms arise. To the coldness and be
numbed feeling Of the back Of head. there is ad
ded formication of the scald, "a sensation as
ants were creeping in it.) violent pam in III
head, dimness Of the sight, unsteadiness !
walking. and vertigo and these are accompar
led by fluttering, feeble pulse. To the fee
ing Of fulness Of the chest and about the cluv
clss. are added threatening Of snf.oca,ion, il
insensibility, and convulsions. The suffering
felt in the stomach are aggravated to violeI
spasms The huttering at the heart become
, pain, violent palpitation, or enfeebled ac,io
, bringing on a syncopc. | may add, here, ih'
the mind does not escape injury. but par,akes
the disorders Of the body, as is seen by the ten
per becoming peevsh and irritable. sn as
render the sufrrer torment to all about him
Who does no, sec, in a substance that can i
duce oil these mischiets on the living syster
less severe though certain poison! Is the
!, possibility Of mistake
y But Mr.. &. brings forward list of ten cas-
ofdiscase from tea drinking. of which the f
!, lowing is an abstract. II should be premise
p however, that except during what he calls Il
! Paroxysms. this distinguished surgeon was n
. in the habit Of giving Notwithstanding sole'
% for cure, on total abstinence from the drin
70 which produced the mischief.
70 His first csse was that of female, thiri
ID five years Of age, who complained Of gre