Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1860-06-02
Ten, Coaee, and Coeoa for lhe SCI.

A great deal too much against tea is said
by wise people and a great deal too much
of tea is given to the sick by foolish peO-
pie. When you see the natural and almost
universal craving in English sick for their
tea, you cannot but feel that nature
kneTs what she is about But a little tea
or coffee restores them quite as much as a
great deal, and great deal Of tea, and es-
peeially Of coffee, impairs the little power Of
digestion they have. Yet the nurse, because
she sees how one or two cups of tea or oOf
fee restores her patient, thinks that three or
four will do twice as much This is not the
case at all; it is, however, certain that there
is nothing yet discovered which is substi-
tute to the English patient for his cup of tea /;
he can take it when he can take nothing
else, and he often can't take anything else
if he has it not
/ should be glad if any of the abusers of
tea would point out what to give to an Eng
lish patient, after sle6plGss night, instead
of tea. If you give it at five or six o'clock
in the morning, he may even sometimes fall
asleep afler it. and get perhaps, his only two
or three hours sleep during the tWenty-four.
At the same time you should never give tea
u
in the afternoon. Sleeplessness in the early
part Of the night is from excitement general
ly, and is increased by tea or coffee; sleep
lessness which continues TO the early morn
ing IS from exhaustion often, and is relieved
by tea The only English patients have
ever known refuse tea have been typhus cases;
and the first sign of their getting better was
their craving again for tea.
In general, the dry and dirty tongue al
ways prefers tea to coffee, and will quite de-
cline milk, unless with tea Coffee is bet-
ter restorative than tea, b4t a greater impair
er of digestion. Let Une patients taste de-
eide You will say that, in cases Of great thirst,
the patients craving decides that he will
drink a great deal of tea and that YOU cam
not help it. But in these cases, be sure that
the patient requires dilutents for quite other
purposes than quenching the thirst-he wants
great deal of some drink, not only of tea,
and the doctor will order that ne is to have
barley water or lemonade or soda water
and milk, as the case may be.
Lehman, quoted by DR., Ghistison, says
that among the well and active, 'the Infusion
of an ounce of roasted coffee daily will di-
minish the waste" going on in the body "by
one-fourth y and Dr. Christison adds that tea
has the same property. Now this is actualex-
pertinent Lehman weighs the man and
finds the fact from his weight 1t is not de-
duced from any analysis of food. All ex-
perience among the sick shows the same
thing.
Cocoa is often recommended to the sick in
lieu of tea or coffee. But independently of
the fact that English sick generally dislike
cocoa, it has quite different sfiect from tea
or coffee. 1t is an oily, starchy nut, having
no restorative at ALL but simply increasing
flt. It is pure mockery of the sick, there
fore to call it a substitute for tea. For any
renovating stimulus it has, You might just as
well offer them ehestnuts instead of tea.
An almost universal error among nurses is
the bulk Of the food, and especially the drinks
they offer to their patients. Suppose pa
tient ordered four ounces of brandy during
the day how is he to take TINS if yoH make it
into four pints with diluting it? The same
with tea and beeftea, with arrowroot, milk,
sc. You have not increased the nOurishment,
you have not increased the renOYating power
Of those articles by increasing the bulk you
have very likely diminished both by giving
the patients digestion more to do; and, most
like of all, the patient viii leave half of what
he has been ordered to take, because he could
not swallow the bulk with which you have
been pleased to invest it. H1E .fIA
1t requires very nice observation and care
land meets with hardly any, to determine
what will not be too thick or strong for the
patient to take while giving him no more
than the bulk which he is able to swallow
Notes on Nursing. By Florence Nightingale