Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-12-22
Coffee as a Medicine,
Derns,e,n's Popular Science.

1 1tpuAai OttchOSs
In recent times coffee has been con-
sidered not as an article of food, but
partly rs kind of medicine. Such it
is, inasmuch as it causes like many
other spices, the stomach to secrete an
increased quality Of gastric juice.
Digestion only takes place when the
sides of the stomach secrete liquid
having the quality of digesting food.
Owing to this, woll-to-dO people take
after dinner cup of coffee, in order
to promote digestion. 1t is because at
night the power of digestion is very
much nfeebled-hence the bad sleep
after one has eaten something difficult
to digest, and because the stomach is
relaxed and inactive, that cup of
coffee in morning refreshes aud stimu-
lates the coat of stomach, and causes
there renewed vigor and activity. 1t
is common observation, that more
appetite is left after coffee than before
it. So much for the Importance of
coffee as spice. Very justly We as
cribe to coffee also a medical influence;
we consider it a medicine for our men,
tai activity, and for the activity of the
nerves.
1t is well known that at night coffee
dispells fatigue, and that by the use of
strong coffee sleep may be banished for
long time; and more, those who are
busy mentally often feel a fresh, in
vigorating impulse after the enjoyment
of coffee. When fatigued with work,
they make it a means to recruit their
strength. For similar reason coffee
can animate conversation. When we
meet elderly ladies in society and
notice them sitting quietly and talking
but in monOsyllables, we need not be sur
prised-they have had no coffee yet.
But when, after a little, conversation
flows with full force, like rapid
stream of water, we may from this
safely recognize the mighty influence
of coffee. 1t has loosened not only the
tongues, but more, the looks, the hands
nay the whole body and the whole
soul. Although the mind has rested
during the night, we feel in the morn
ing desirous of stimulating our nervous
system with a cup of coffee, preparing,
as it were only our minds for the days
work. A modern naturalist, as genial
as he is learned, Moleschoot, ascribes
the lately increased consumption of
coffee to the greater degree of mental
activity, which life in former times
did not require to such a high extent
as our present age.
We have now sufficiently explained
the need of coffee drinking, and we
must confess that all we have said
here does not in the least affect our
conviction that, according to Liebig,
coffee is almost nutritive. And no one
can help believing this who has seen
how old people subsist on but very lit
tie food provided they can have plenty
of coffee. The objection raised that it
should be better for these persons to
take the nitrogen contained in coffee
in the form of meat is correct; but on
the other hand, we must stop to ask
whether meat would be good for the
stomach at all such times as a cup of
coffee isp This would certainly not be
the case early in the morning; and if
in the coffee we enjoy beverage
which gives us nutriment, strengthens
the stomach and at the same time
stimulates our mind, we have good
reasons to reverence the instinct of
man which raised coffee to an essential
means of subsistence, and discovered
its beneficial influence long before this
was done by science.