Part 3

Having thus considered the dismal and too frequently fatal consequences of the nerves being affected, it is presumed this part of the Essay cannot be more interestingly concluded than by a summary of the distinct symptomatic effects attending, more or less, complaints of the nerves; and although the following symptoms are alarming with regard to their number and variety, yet the reader may be assured there is not one specified but what is either the immediate or ultimate effect of a nervous affection, and which is too frequently the consequence of the violent astringency of foreign tea taken injudiciously as a constant aliment:--A faintness, succeeded with a delusive vision of motes, mists, and clouds, falling backwards and forwards before the distempered sight--A yawning, gaping, stretching out of the arms, twitching of the nerves, sneezing, drowsiness, and contraction of the breast--Dulness, debility, distress, and dismay, with a great sense of weariness--A wan complexion, a languid eye, a loathing stomach, and an uncertain appetite, which, if not immediately satisfied, is irremediably lost--Heartburning, bilious vomitings, belchings, pains in the pit of the stomach, and shortness of breath--Dizziness, inveterate pains in the temples and other parts of the head, a tingling noise in the ear, a throbbing of the brain, especially of the temporal arteries--Symptoms of asthma, tickling coughs, visible inflations, and unusual scents affecting the olfactory nerves--Sometimes costive and sometimes relaxed--Sudden flushings of heat, and suffusions of countenance--In the night, alternate sweats and shiverings, especially down the back, which seems to feel as if water was poured down that part of the body--A ptyalism, or discharge of phlegm from the glands of the throat, which generally attends all the symptoms--Troublesome pains between the shoulders, pains attended with hot sensations, cramps and convulsive motions of the muscles, or a few of their fibres--Sudden startings of the tendons of the legs and arms--Copious and frequent discharges of pale and limpid urine--Vertigoes, long faintings, and cold, moist, clammy sweat about the temples and forehead--Wandering pains in the sides, back, knees, ancles, arms, wrists, and somewhat resembling rheumatic pains--The head generally warm, while the rest of the body is cold or chilly--Obstinate watchinqs, disturbed sleep, frightful dreams, the night mare, startings when awake, and the mind filled with the most terrific apprehensions--Tremors of the limbs, and palpitations of the heart--A very variable and irregular pulse--Periodical pains in the head--A sense of suffocation, frequent sighings, and shedding of tears--Convulsive spasms of the muscles, tendons, nerves of the back, loins, arms, hands, and a general convulsion of the stomach, bowels, throat, legs, and indeed almost every other part of the body--A quick apprehension, forgetful, unsettled, and constant to nothing but inconstancy--A wandering and delirious imagination, groundless fears, and an exquisite sense of his sufferings--A gradually sinking into a nervous atrophy or consumption--A perpetual alarm of approaching death--Sometimes cheerful, and sometimes melancholy--Without present enjoyment or future expectation of any thing but increasing misery and debility.--If these symptoms are inconsiderately suffered to continue, they soon terminate in palsy, hip, madness, epilepsy, apoplexy, or in some mortal disease, as the black jaundice, dropsy, consumption, &c.

Having ascertained, from this enquiry, the injurious properties of India tea, it may naturally be expected that I should propose some article that might prove more beneficial. With this requisition I shall most readily comply, although I may expose myself to the invidious censure of having directed all my efforts to establish the celebrity of whatever article I may recommend. But being convinced, that, by publishing the virtue of a tea that I have investigated from physical analysis and particular observation, I may essentially serve the public, I am content to suffer the obloquy, provided it is productive of a general benefit. Having, as before observed, examined, with the greatest attention, the nature of most articles that have been offered as morning and afternoon beverage, there are two which claim most particularly the preference of all others that are sold under the denomination of Tea: these are, 1st, that which was discovered by that eminent botanist Sir Hans Sloane; and the other, by a botanist and physician equally celebrated, Dr. Solander. I therefore, without considering in what manner the interest of the proprietors of these teas may be individually affected, propose two articles, in order to shew that my partiality or opinion of the virtues of the one could not prejudice me so far as to prevent my allowing due praise to any other possessing qualities deserving approbation. I am happy to state that, from my analysis of that invented by Sir Hans Sloane, called British Tea, I found it possesses most singular virtues for relieving many nervous complaints; but, from the same trials and experiments made on that invented by Dr. Solander, I have been convinced that, although the qualities of the former are exceedingly salutary, they are not so general in their restoration and nutritious effects as the latter. Being thus convinced of the extraordinary properties of Dr. Solander's Tea, I have been induced to state, in a Treatise upon their Nature, Preparation, and Effects, reasons founded on chemical analysis, physical efficiency, and experimental observation, in support of their most eminent virtues. After every trial I have made of coffee, chocolate[1], and most other preparations that have been, and are at present, offered to the public as a substitute for tea, none seem to claim the preference so eminently as that invented by Dr. Solander. From their analysis, I find their virtues are of the most corrective and balsamic kind; they strengthen the tone of the stomach, not by astringing the solids, but by lubricating the vessels, sheathing the acrids, and attenuating the liquids.

[1] "_Coffee.--In bilious habits it is very hurtful._" Dr. Carr's Med. Epist. p. 25.

"_Coffee.--I cannot advise it to those of hardness of breathing._" Ibid. p. 29.

"_Coffee, according to Paule, a Danish physician, enervates men and renders them incapable of generation, which injurious tendency is certainly attributed to it by the Turks. From its immoderate use they account for the decrease of population in their provinces, that were so numerously peopled before this berry was introduced among them. Mr. Boyle mentions an instance of a person to whom Coffee always proved an emetic. He also says that he has known great drinking of it produce the palsy._

"_Chocolate is too gross for many weak stomachs, and exceedingly injurious to those liable to phlegm and viscid humours._" Saunders's Nat. & Art. Direct. for Health.

"_Chocolate overloads the stomach, and renders the juices too slow in their circulation._" Smith on the Nerves.

In this manner they restore the equilibrium of the oscillatory motions, which establish the tone of the nervous system. This being strengthened, the animal spirits are enabled to dispense their reviving influence to the sensitive, digestive, and intellectual powers. And these being thus restored to their vigour of operation, a simple and moderate portion of food is rendered the most nutritious, and the body is consequently established in the enjoyment of health and happiness.

The above virtues of the sanative tea are not here asserted as a declamatory panegyric, but as the result of a physical analysis of their nature, and a serious examination into their mode of operating as a restorative and constant aliment. Without presuming their qualities to be an unlimited remedy for all complaints, the nature of the preparation of this tea is compared with the causes and effects of nervous disorders: from this comparison their relative virtue to such diseases are most clearly evinced: and thus is this invaluable discovery proved to be the most effectual remedy for all those complaints caused by drinking foreign teas, that was ever yet or may be hereafter invented.

In proposing to the public any simple or compound, for the preserving, increasing, or restoring health, the first object should be to explain its nature. This is the principal test by which its merits can be known, or mankind rationally induced to try its virtues. And as this sanative tea is offered as a substitute for what is generally used as two fourths of our aliment, and which, from the preceding enquiry, has been found the principal cause of our present infirmities, the greater necessity there is for a candid investigation of its nature.

Impressed with the above conviction, it is fairly stated that the nature of this sanative tea is not from any combination of the animal or mineral kingdom, but a collection of the most salutary native and exotic herbs that are produced in the vegetable empire of nature. These have not been collected by the fanatic devotees of occult qualities, but by the scientific researches and personal experience of a character that is equally and justly admired for his philosophical, medical, and botanical knowledge. The discoverer, Dr. Solander, of this tea, inquired into the virtues of each native and exotic herb of which it is composed, not only by abstract reasoning upon its relative qualities, but by the more immediate evidence of his senses: by submitting each vegetable to his taste and smell, he derived the most certain physical proof of its qualities. Thus he knew the particular virtues of each, and what salutary effects they must, from their preparation as a compound, produce when applied as a relief for the innumerable diseases caused by drinking foreign teas. Not confining himself to _English Plants_, he studied and examined the virtues of _Exotics_, among which he discovered some that possess virtues he had not found in those of his own country: by adopting these, he has increased the salutary effects of his invaluable tea. From reading Hippocrates, Discorides, and Galen, he found the ancients derived all their knowledge of plants by their taste and smell. With these examples before him, and his own propensity to study, joined to his penetrating judgement, it is no wonder he should have so well succeeded. Thus he recurred to the original mode of inquiry, which first established and raised the eminence of physic; neglecting that delusive principle of Aristotle's philosophy, which has since taught too many physicians to express the virtue of medicines by hot, cold, moist, and dry, without deriving the least information from their senses Dr. Solander, aided by chemical analysis, distinguished the virtue by the taste or odour of every plant. By this means their specific juices he found tasted either earthy, mucilaginous, sweet, bitter, aromatic, fetid, acrid, or corrosive. From this experience he found the observation of some botanists to be true, "That there is no virtue yet known in plants but what depends on the taste or smell, and may be known by them."[2] With this infallible means of pursuing his enquiry, he formed a tea composed of herbs that are in their nature astringent, balsamic, aromatic, cephalic, and diaphoretic. These virtues combined may be said to form one of the most incomparable specifics, as a nutritive and restoring aliment, that has been discovered.

[2] _Floyer, Malpighus, Epew, Harvey, Willis, Lower, Needham, Glisson, &c._

In the astringent, the acid fixing upon the more earthly parts, the nutritious oil is more easily separated, which renders them also pectoral, cleaning, and diuretic. This part of the tea is in its nature particularly serviceable in all cases where vulnerary medicines are requisite. They particularly amend the acid in the nervous juice, and thus restore the equal motion of the spirits, which were obstructed or retarded by spasms or convulsions. By the volatile oil and volatile pungent salt, obstructions are opened, and the motions of the languid blood increased to a healthy degree of circulation. They resolve coagulated phlegm in the stomach, preserve the fluidity of the juices, and promote digestion, by assisting the bile in its operation.

And with regard to their balsamic and aromatic nature, these qualities warm the stomach and expel wind, by rarefying the flatuous exhalations from chyle in the prima viae. These, by their sweetness, allay the sharpness of rheums, and lenify their acrimony. Being filled with an oily salt, they open the passage of the lungs and kidnies. By opening the pores, they extraordinarily discuss outward tumours, and attenuate the internal coagulation. All these virtues may be said to be derived from the union of their balsamic oil and volatile salt.

By a second class of aromatics, with which Dr. Solander composed this sanative tea, is such as have a bitter astringency joined to their volatile oil and salt. These united qualities correct acids in the stomach, cleanse the lungs, and open obstructions in the glands caused by coagulated serum; and the saline pungent oil altering the acids in the glands of the brain, by correcting and attenuating its lympha and succus nervosus, produces the same effect; for the lympha and nervous juice are, like other glandulous humours, liable to acidity and stagnation; therefore these aromatics, by exciting their motion and correcting their acidities, render the liquids of the nerves more volatile, and are therefore justly termed cephalics. And as it is the property of volatiles to ascend, the reason is evident of the brain being assisted by their salutary qualities. These aromatics likewise evacuate serum from the blood, promote its circulation, and attenuate the coagulations of chyle, lympha, and succus nervosus. And here, it is proper to add, that all aromatics, by rarefying the blood, are cordial. There being aromatic astringents in this tea, its infusion strengthens the fibres and membranes of the stomach, and all the nervous system, in such a manner as not to destroy their tensity by that too great contraction caused by the foreign teas; and, having no acid in their astringency, the blood is preserved from too great a rarefaction, which would otherwise happen from the pungency of their oily qualities. These also excite the appetite, by stimulating the natural progress of the chyle, and thus prevent its too rapid fermentation of its spirituous parts into windy flatulencies. For the same reason vinegar is taken with hot meats and herbs. Having mentioned vinegar, it may not be improper to state this vegetable acid is the best antidote against the poison of any acrid herbs. That part of the tea which has a mucilaginous taste is inwardly cooler than oil, although it be different in nature. Such herbs defend the throat from the sharpness of rheums, the stomach from corrosive humours of disease or acrimonious medicines; the ureters from sharp, choleric, or acid urine, and lubricate the passage for the stony gravel. Their crude parts cool the heat of scorbutic blood, lessen its violent motion, and sheathe its acrid saline particles.

By their different mucilaginous principles they produce the following various salutary effects:

The earthy repel and cool outward inflammations.

The watery, which is thick and gummose, stop fluxes and correct sharp humours.

Those of an oily odour alleviate pains.

Those of a pungent acrid dissolve tartareous concretions in the kidnies.

From these and a variety of other salutary properties, it is evident the general nature of Dr. Solander's tea is such as to correct acrid humours, promote the secretions, restore the equilibrium between the fluids and solids, and finally to brace every part of the relaxed nervous system. The body being thus relieved from obstructions, its circulations restored, the digestive faculties invigorated, and the spirits re-animated, the debilitated constitution is reinstated in all its enjoyments of health and hilarity. It may be therefore observed, that the principle of this tea is to nourish as a general aliment, while it renovates the human constitution, without having recourse to the nauseous portions of galenical preparation, or the hazardous trial of chalybeate waters. As this tea is particularly salutary in all cases where mineral waters are generally recommended, it is very proper the Public should be cautioned against the danger which too frequently attends the constant drinking of them.

Chalybeate waters, it must be acknowledged, have effected very extraordinary cures in certain cases. But when so great an author as Helmont says, that such waters are fatal to all those who are afflicted with peripneumonic complaints, it is surely necessary they should be resorted to with the greatest caution; and even in complaints where they may be serviceable, it is necessary to observe whether they really possess those chalybeate qualities for which they are commended. Those who have written upon their virtues assert, and with seeming propriety, that where they deposit an ochreous sediment, they are certainly dispossessed of their steely virtues; for ochre being no other than the calx of iron, such a residue evinces the evaporation of the more eminent properties of the chalybeate, by the phlogiston of the mineral escaping by its extreme volatility. Every metal deprived of this igneous principle is immediately reduced to a calx, and thus deprived of its splendour, fusibility, and other properties, until restored again by the readmission of its phlogiston. Calcined lead having lost this inflammable quality, is reduced to a red calx or mineral earth, which, if fluxed with any igneous body, such as oil, pitch, wax, fat, wood, bone, or mineral oil or bitumen, the fiery principle is resorbed, and the lead restored to its essential qualities; from these physical observations the reader may be convinced of those mineral waters as afford such a sediment being in a state of decomposition. They are thus deprived of one of the four elements or principles of which they are all more or less composed. Every analysis of mineral waters in their perfect state has demonstrated that they possess a fixed air, a volatile alkali, a volatile vitriolic acid, and the phlogiston. If, therefore, either of these essential qualities is evaporated or corrupted, the water, being in a state of decomposition, must lose the virtues of a medicinal chalybeate.

It is only necessary to add a few further remarks, in order to shew in what particular complaints chalybeates, even in their most perfect state, are pernicious. By this means many of the diseased will be guarded against a fatal error: and as the prejudice in favour of such applications is so universally prevalent, it is hoped a few pages allotted to this subject will be deemed a most essential service to a deluded community. By removing such a pernicious partiality, the health, if not the lives of thousands, may be saved, to the great enjoyment of themselves and their relatives. Dr. Knight says very justly, "that the explication of the manner of the operation of chalybeate medicines in human bodies is grounded upon false principles, and not matters of fact; to wit, that all chalybeate preparations, in a liquid form, owe their medicinal efficacy to the metal dissolved, whether in an aqueous or spirituous menstruum, retaining its metallic texture." To avoid entering into the whole detail of this interesting argument, it is only here stated in support of the above assertion, that as mineral waters are impregnated with a combination of sulphurs, salts, and earth, their virtues cannot be properly ascribed, as they have been, to the metals which they contain. It might be further proved, that iron cannot possibly enter the blood, retaining its essential qualities; for metals in general, except mercury, are suspended in liquids in _solutis principiis_, or principles disengaged, which are thus deprived of their metallic properties. Iron, entering the body as a volatile vitriolic acid, cannot act by its specific gravity as mercury does; it therefore acts _per accidens_, and not _per se_. But admitting that waters, however impregnated with iron, are efficacious in checking all diarrhoea and other profuse evacuations, by closing the relaxed vessels, and incrassating the fluids, yet as they prove sometimes so astringent as to stop the natural secretions, the consequences are frequently cramps, dangerous convulsions, which often end in fevers, inflammations, and mortifications, their indiscriminate use should be most cautiously avoided. Chalybeates, thus contracting the least pervious glands, should not be taken in acute inflammations, or in any complaints that are attended with a quick and strong pulse, a plethora, or extravasation of humours. They are equally dangerous in all nervous contractions, or where the blood is got into the arteriolae, or capillary vessels. Thus, instead of acting like the sanative tea, which softens, smoothes, and unbends the two constringed fibres, the vitriolic salts of this mineral water but more contract the fibrillae, by operating like so many wedges, which ultimately tear, rend, or divide the tender filaments. It must, however, be admitted that mineral waters are very beneficial in cachexies, scurvies, jaundice, hypochondriacal and hysterical affections. Having paid this tribute to their virtues, it is evident that what is above stated respecting their pernicious effects has been dictated by candour, and with no illiberal disposition to deny their absolute virtues[3]. These few remarks have only been made in order to warn the community against a prevailing and indiscriminate use which might otherwise, in many complaints, prove at least fatal to their health, if not to their existence. And as the tea discovered by Dr. Solander possesses all the virtues of the chalybeate, without its dangerous principles, it was an immediate duty not only to warn but direct the Public in their adoption of an aliment so essential to their health, and consequently temporal happiness.

[3] _Waters drank at their source are efficacious in many complaints that are not accompanied with inflammatory symptoms; but if they are drank after a long or short conveyance, their effects must be proportionably injurious instead of beneficial._

PREPARATION.