The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-07-23
KOLA STIMULANTS.
Dangers to Which People Who Use Them
Are Liable.

Are Liable.
1t is the belief of nearly all conserva-
tive physicians that there is no stimu-
liant the use of which is not followed
by corresponding depression or re-
action. For some years there has been
a vast amount of fiction printed about
the kola-nut. We have all of us heard
the fairy tales about the Indians who
We're in the habit of running 100 miles
for days in succession, and sustaining
themselves by an occasional bite of a
liola-nut. We have never believed
these tales, and we think very few ply
sicians believe them. There is no doubt
that kola is a stimulant, and that it
has some of the qualities claimed for
it, but no stimulant has yet been dis
covered that is not followed by a reac-
ton. Nearly all stimulants, such as
tea, coffee, caffeine, alcohol and others,
act in the same way. They act upon
the body as whip does upon a horse,
and impel it to increased effort. They
make the heart pump the blood moro
rapidly throughout the circulatory sys-
TEN. But after the heart has been
pumping at an accelerated rate, pc
Rod of depression will follow, unless
the tissue waste caused thereby is re-
placed by new tissue, and sometimes
even when the tissue waste is replaced.
When stimulant like llola, which con-
tains absolutely no nutritive elements,
is taken into the body, the effect must
be similar to those of alcohol, and the
use of this stimulant must be followed
by 81 reaction.
Prof. Lehman, the great German au-
thority on physiological chemistry,
says that caffeine is closely allied to
kreatine and other tissue poisons, the re-
suit of tissue waste; the accumulation
of these waste products within the body
gives rise to loss of energy, languor,
and a lack of ability to work. Beef
tea which does not contain the fiber OF
the meat is also a mere stimulant, and is
almost identical with krea thine, one of
the products of tissue waste. a great
French surgeon once remarked that
beef tea is veritable solution of
ptomains. The late Dr. Edward Smith
proved that tea and coffee stimulate
people and impel them to perform
greater amounts of work, but that the
fatigue experienced after the effort put
forth under the influence of these slim
uiants is always far greater than that
induced by the same amount of work
performed without the stimulant. CAT
feline is very closely analogous to koia.
1t is, as we have before remarked, al
lied to the tissue poisons resulting from
tissue waste. 1t is like cocaine, opium,
cannabis indica, and other drugs-a
deluSion and a snare. 1t temporarily
removes the sense of WEAKNESS or ia
tigue, but it does not give any greater
capacity for work; all it does is to whip
the tired body as a cruel driver whips
a tired horse on the last hill going home
kola is not coca, but of cocaine many
evil tales are told-tales that should
warn people against these new stimu-
lants. There is striking case in the
dry record of an Indiana asylum for
the insane. 1t is told of a physician
who was called in to cure young girl
of the opium habit. He succeeded in
curing her by the use of cocaine, fell
in love with her, married her, and, in
stead of relieving her from the cocaine
habit, by which he had hoped to cure
her of the opium habit. he joined her in
the fatal vice, and both of them to-day
are inmates of an asylum for the incur
ably insane.-San Francisco Argonaut,