Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-12-01
TEA AND COFFEE TiPPLiNG.

t6A NNO SS6GGG IITTIiNSs
From an editorial on the above topic
in Good Health we make the following
abstract:
The fact that when a person drinks
strong tea and coffee the sense of hum
ger is allayed has given rise to the
idea that tea and coffee are foods.
They diminish the appetite for food
simply by diminishing the ability to
digest it. They are not foods because
a person cannot live upon them.
Carefully conducted experiments
show that the use of tea and coffee has
a pernicious effect upon digestion be-
cause of the injurious substances they
contain.
If you take a strong cup of tea and
stir it with an iron spoon, it soon be-
comes black; this is because of the
combination of the tannin of the tea.
with iron, a combination that makes
ink.
Leather is made from soaking hides
in decoction of oak bark, which con-
tains tannin. The tannic acid COM
bines with the connective tissue of the
hides or skins, and thus produces
leather. So when a man eats a piece
of beefsteak and drinks strong cup
of tea, the tannic acid of the tea COM
bines with the connective tissue of the
steak, and it is converted into leather.
If one were to soak his beefsteak in
a strong cup of tea for half an hour,
he would find it as impossible to chew
it rs to chew sole leather.
Some writers say that while tea him
ders the digestion of the albuminoids,
it encourages that of starch.
The common use OF tea and toast
may have led many people to hold
this opinion. Certainly it is very gen.
orally considered happy combina-
ton. But it is very unhappy one
for the starch of the bread is rendered
indigestible by the tannin of the tea,
which paralyzes the salivary glands.
thus hindering the production OF
aliva.
The saliva digests the starch; with
out saliva, starch could not digest, and
tea, even in small quantities, paralyzes
to some extent the salivary glands.
Not only is it true that tea and
coffee contain no nourishment and
Seriously interfere with digestion, but
it is true also that they contain poi
sonous matter. One proof of this is
that they will kill animals.
Distil tea or coffee by placing it in
a dry retort. and q poison in it is
crystalized in the form of needles;
this poison can be separated from tea
or coffee by various means. The
amount of poisonous matter (theine)
contained in tea is about 6 per cent,
the theme of tea and the caffeine of
coffee being the same thing.
One-eighth of grain of caffeine or
theme will kill frog; five grains will
kill q rabbit and seven and a half
grains will kill cat. There is more
than an ounce of poison in pound of
tea, enough to kill seventy rabbits or
fifty cats. There is another poison in
tea besides theme and tannin; it con-
tains an aromatic property, an essen
tial oil, and that produces the excite
ment of the nerves, which is the re-.
suit of drinking tea.
The Chinese women have little cups
about as big as thimble, and they sip
from these several times q day; but
their tea is so weak that if it were
served to you, you would say there is
no tea about it. That sort of tea is
comparatively harmless; there is not
enough poison in it to produce any
bad effect.
The use OF tea and coffee is recog-
nized as one OF the causes of the
multiplying of nervous diseases among
the men and women OF America.
might give you several instances of
persons who have rid themselves of
sick headache and dyspepsia simply by
abandoning the use of tea and coffee.
We must conclude, then, that tea
drinking is sort of tippling, although
the results are not so quickly shown
as are those of alcohol tippling.