Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-03-30
DEFECTIVE VISION.
A WRITER WHO THINKS THAT
COFFEE is TO BLAME.
Experience of Patron of the Fra
grant Narcotic-Resultso of In
ordinate Coffee Drinking.

l am satisfied that defective vision and
blindness will pretty soon be prominent
characteristic among the American people,
the same as rotten teeth have been during
the last 200 years. / make this assertion
without having seen any statistics what
ever on the subject of blindness. found
out long ago that cup of coffee leaves a
night shade on the brain which continues
longer than an eclipse of the sun. / had
long noticed that the eyes of old coffee
drinkers had dry and shriyeled appear
ance
Having discovered some years ago that
my own eyesight was surely weakening, I
then ceased to drink coffee as freely as /
had used it, and became a moderate and
more observant patron of the fragrant mar
cotic. But / have learned that moderate
coffee-drinking il a hard thing to manage,
being pretty sure to develop into the regu-
lar habit again with insidious ease, espe-
cially at those times when the physical
system feels to be in need of some elixir.
Besides, it is quite distressing for person
to be lighting Oft a powerful habit at each
meal. l now feel free from the coffee
drinking vice, and will have no more
trouble with it unless shall again fall a
victim to some church supper or to the
magnetic Establishments of some buoyant
hostess.
Having long worked at a trade which
requires almost as exact use of the eve as
the occupation of a jeweler, / made the
discovery that single cup of coffee would
have perceptible effect on my eyes. This
fact was the more apparent because my
eyesight was originally very good-in fact,
about the best. After having used coffee
with Indifferent frequency and copiousness
for many years, my sight became abnor-
mally weak, and began to feel horror of
darkness, wishing that the sun would never
set, and desiring instinctively to 90 to
some place where the nights would be
short the entire year. But now | have
quite little of this feeling left. Ny eyes
have regained to curious extent their
former range and spontaneity. / again
enjoy the long panoramic views of nature
which are afforded from the baby noun.
tains that skirt Council Bluffs on the east
like an encampment. | can take these
long telescope sweeps of vision again with
out blinking or feeling the weakened re-
Taxation which alarmed me a week ago.
have no doubt but what this weak
ness of the eyes which results from coffee
drinking is due to the sympathy which
the optic nerve has for the nasal cavity
(the latter being continuous with the
membrane of the mouth). The nasal cav
ity, with its first pair of brain nerves.. is
naturally principal place to be affected
by any drinking habit. For instance, to
partake of a dish of soup will sometimes
cause persons breathing to become
thick and decidedly labored. All of the
sensory nerves are much affected by coffee
drinking gentle and highly re-
fined threads of sympathetic force which
enter largely into the sense of smell, taste,
sight and hearing. The entire sympa-
thetic system is likewise involved i'm
mediately in the coffee drinking habit.
The brain, again, is intensely affected
thereby, because the principal nerves of
the brain branch off from the nasal cavity.
Coffee drinking Is especially injurious
when it is resorted to as a backing for
strong food. There are plenty of robust
persons among us who have drank coffee
pretty freely for a lifetime, but who are
seemingly uninjured by it. To this fact |
reply that appearances are sometimes de-
ceiving to Impractical eyes, and that
vice does not in all cases show its effects
plainly in the first generation. The free
use of coffee dates back only one genera
ton in this country, But this will say,
that no person is as stout for three hours
after having drank coffee as he was before.
AS long as person remains endowed
with latent constitutional strength he can
participate in different vices with seeming
impunity-but he is gradually using up
his capital and will reach his limit ere his
life is fully prolonged. His children and
grandchildren will show a degeneration
of the family stock, though they
doubtless exhibit at present a prema-
ture brightness of mind. Children that
are allowed to pmtake freely of coffee will
become restless, fussy and noisy, half wild
with mischief. They probably advance in
their school studies with abnormal rapid
ity. But they hate work. At times they
are Indifferent about education Their
strength goes to the brain. They grow
rapidly, but not Alright. They develop
Yet their eyes dance with angelic splen-
dor, and their cheeks glow with vermilion,
providing they started in life with robust
constitutions. If they began life with
puny physiques, however, coffee will make
them slim and ghostly, and their eyes and
features fiat. Coffee will seem to improve
those persons only who have a surplus of
constitutional vigor. These individuals
will seem possessed with forms and faces
of marvellous grace and finish, yet they
will fade all too soon, and fall into the
hands of the doctor. Coffee has magical
effect on the heart and circulatory system,
and for awhile produces the intoxication
which approaches that of opium or cocaine.
1t causes swift growth and speedy decay.
1t produces beauty and exhilaration, but
not endurance.-North American Reriew.