CHAPTER XV.

COUNT RUMFORD’S SUBSTITUTE FOR TEA AND COFFEE.

TAKE eight parts by weight of meal (Rumford says ‘wheat or rye meal,’ and I add, or oatmeal), and one part of butter. Melt the butter in a clean _iron_ frying-pan, and, when thus melted, sprinkle the meal into it; stir the whole briskly with a broad wooden spoon or spatula till the butter has disappeared and the meal is of a uniform brown colour, like roasted coffee, great care being taken to prevent burning on the bottom of the pan. About half an ounce of this roasted meal boiled in a pint of water, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, forms ‘burnt soup,’ much used by the wood-cutters of Bavaria, who work in the mountains far away from any habitations. Their provisions for a week (the time they commonly remain in the mountains) consist of a large loaf of rye bread (which, as it does not so soon grow dry and stale as wheaten bread, is always preferred to it); a linen bag, containing a small quantity of roasted meal, prepared as above; another small bag of salt, and a small wooden box containing some pounded black pepper; and sometimes, but not often, a small bottle of vinegar; but _black pepper_ is an ingredient never omitted. The rye bread, which eaten alone or with cold water would be very hard fare, is rendered palatable and satisfactory, Rumford thinks also more wholesome and nutritious, by the help of a bowl of hot soup, so easily prepared from the roasted meal. He tells us that this is not only used by the wood-cutters, but that it is also the common breakfast of the Bavarian peasant, and adds that ‘it is infinitely preferable, in all respects, to that most pernicious wash, _tea_, with which the lower classes of the inhabitants of this island drench their stomachs and ruin their constitutions.’ He adds that ‘when tea is taken with a sufficient quantity of sugar and good cream, and with a large quantity of bread-and-butter, or with toast and boiled eggs, and, above all, _when it is not drunk too hot_, it is certainly less unwholesome; but a simple infusion of this drug, drunk boiling hot, as the poor usually take it, is certainly a poison, which, though it is sometimes slow in its operation, never fails to produce fatal effects, even in the strongest constitutions, where the free use of it is continued for a considerable length of time.’

This may appear to many a very strong condemnation of their favourite beverage; nevertheless, I am satisfied that it is sound; and my opinion is not hastily adopted, nor borrowed from Rumford, but a conclusion based upon many observations, extending over a long period of years, and confirmed by experiments made upon myself.

I therefore strongly recommend this substitute, especially as so many of us have to submit to the beneficent domestic despotism of the gentler and more persevering sex, one of the common forms of this despotism being that of not permitting its male victim to drink cold water at breakfast. This burnt soup has the further advantage of rendering imperative the boiling of the water, a most important precaution against the perils of sewage contamination, not removable by mere filtration.

The experience of every confirmed tea-drinker, when soundly interpreted, supplies condemnation of his beverage; the plea commonly urged on its behalf being, when understood, an eloquent expression of such condemnation. ‘It is so refreshing;’ ‘I am fit for nothing when tea-time comes round until I have had my tea, and then I am fit for anything.’ The ‘fit for nothing’ state comes on at 5 P.M., when the drug is taken at the orthodox time, or even in the early morning, in the case of those who are accustomed to have a cup of tea brought to their bedside before rising. Some will even plead for tea by telling that by its aid one can sit up all night long at brain-work without feeling sleepy, provided ample supplies of the infusion are taken from time to time.

It is unquestionably true that such may be done; that the tea-drinker is languid and weary at tea-time, whatever be the hour, and that the refreshment produced by ‘the cup that cheers’ and is _said_ not to inebriate, is almost instantaneous.

What is the true significance of these facts?

The refreshment is certainly not due to nutrition, not to the rebuilding of any worn-out or exhausted organic tissue. The total quantity of material conveyed from the tea-leaves into the water is ridiculously too small for the performance of any such nutritive function; and besides this, the action is far too rapid, there is not sufficient time for the conversion of even that minute quantity into organised working tissue. The action cannot be that of a food, but is purely and simply that of a stimulating or irritant drug, acting directly and abnormally on the nervous system.

The five-o’clock lassitude and craving is neither more nor less than the reaction induced by the habitual abnormal stimulation; or otherwise, and quite fairly, stated, it is the outward symptom of a diseased condition of brain produced by the action of a drug; it may be but a mild form of disease, but it is truly a disease nevertheless.

The active principle which produces this result is the crystalline alkaloid, the _theine_,[18] a compound belonging to the same class as strychnine and a number of similar vegetable poisons. These, when diluted, act medicinally—that is, produce disturbance of normal functions as the tea does, and, like theine, most of them act specially on the nervous system; when concentrated they are dreadful poisons, very small doses causing death. The volatile oil, of which tea contains about 1 per cent., probably contributes to this effect. Johnston attributes the headaches and giddiness to which tea-tasters are subject to this oil, and also ‘the attacks of paralysis to which, after a few years, those who are employed in packing and unpacking chests of tea are found to be liable.’ As both the alkaloid and the oil are volatile, I suspect that they jointly contribute to these disturbances, the narcotic business being done by the volatile oil, the paralysis supplied by the alkaloid.

The non-tea-drinker does not suffer any of the five-o’clock symptoms, and, if otherwise in sound health, remains in steady working condition until his day’s work is ended and the time for rest and sleep arrives. But the habitual victim of any kind of drug or disturber of normal functions acquires a diseased condition, displayed by the loss of vitality or other deviation from normal function, which is temporarily relieved by the usual dose of the drug, but only in such wise as to generate a renewed craving. I include in this general statement all the vice-drugs (to coin a general name), such as alcohol, opium, tobacco (whether smoked, chewed, or snuffed), arsenic, haschisch, betel-nut, coca-leaf, thorn-apple, Siberian fungus, maté, &c., all of which are excessively ‘refreshing’ to their victims, and of which the use may be, and has been, defended by the same arguments as those used by the advocates of habitual tea-drinking.

Speaking generally, the reaction or residual effect of these on the system is nearly the opposite of that of their immediate effect, and thus larger and larger doses are demanded to bring the system to its normal condition. The non-tea-drinker or moderate drinker is kept awake by a cup of tea or coffee taken late at night, while the hard drinker of these beverages scarcely feels any effect, especially if accustomed to take it at that time.

The practice of taking tea or coffee by students, in order to work at night, is downright madness, especially when preparing for an examination. More than half of the cases of breakdown, loss of memory, fainting, &c., which occur during severe examinations, and far more frequently than is commonly known, are due to this.

I continually hear of promising students who have thus failed; and, on inquiry, have learned—in almost every instance—that the victim has previously drugged himself with tea or coffee. Sleep is the rest of the brain; to rob the hard-worked brain of its necessary rest is cerebral suicide.

My old friend, the late Thomas Wright (the archæologist), was a victim of this terrible folly. He undertook the translation of the ‘Life of Julius Cæsar,’ by Napoleon III., and to do it in a cruelly short time. He fulfilled his contract by sitting up several nights successively by the aid of strong tea or coffee (I forget which). I saw him shortly afterwards. In a few weeks he had aged alarmingly, had become quite bald; his brain gave way and never recovered. There was but little difference between his age and mine, and but for this dreadful cerebral strain, rendered possible only by the stimulant (for otherwise he would have fallen to sleep over his work, and thereby saved his life), he might still be amusing and instructing thousands of readers by fresh volumes of popularised archæological research.

I need scarcely add that all I have said above applies to coffee as to tea, though not so seriously _in this country_. The active alkaloid is the same in both, but tea contains weight for weight above twice as much as coffee. In this country we commonly use about 50 per cent. more coffee than tea to each given measure of water. On the Continent they use about double our quantity (this is the true secret of ‘Coffee as in France’), and thus produce as potent an infusion as our tea.

I need scarcely add that the above remarks are exclusively applied to the _habitual_ use of these stimulants. As medicines, used occasionally and judiciously, they are invaluable, provided always that they are not used as ordinary beverages. In Italy, Greece, and some parts of the East, it is customary, when anybody feels ill with indefinite symptoms, to send to the druggist for a dose of tea. From what I have seen of its action on non-tea-drinkers, it appears to be specially potent in arresting the premonitory symptoms of fever, the fever headache, &c.

Since the publication of the above in ‘Knowledge,’ I have been reminded of the high authorities who have defended the use of the alkaloids, and more particularly of Liebig’s theory, or the theory commonly attributed to Liebig, but which is Lehmann’s, published in Liebig’s ‘Annalen,’ vol. lxxxvii., and adopted and advocated by Liebig with his usual ability.

Lehmann watched _for some weeks_ the effects of coffee upon two persons in good health. He found that it retarded the waste of the tissues of the body, that the proportion of phosphoric acid and of urea excreted by the kidneys was diminished by the action of the coffee, the diet being in all other respects the same. Pure caffeine (which is the same as theine) produced a similar effect; the aromatic oil of the coffee, given separately, was found to exert a stimulating effect on the nervous system.

Johnston (‘Chemistry of Common Life’) closely following Liebig, and referring to the researches of Lehmann, says: ‘_The waste of the body is lessened by the introduction of theine into the stomach—that is, by the use of tea._ And if the waste be lessened, the necessity for food to repair it will be lessened in an equal proportion. In other words, by the consumption of a certain quantity of tea, the health and strength of the body will be maintained in an equal degree upon a smaller quantity of ordinary food. _Tea, therefore, saves food_—stands to a certain extent in the place of food—while, at the same time, it soothes the body and enlivens the mind.’

He proceeds to say that ‘in the old and infirm it serves also another purpose. In the life of most persons a period arrives when the stomach no longer digests enough of the ordinary elements of food to make up for the natural daily waste of the bodily substance. The size and weight of the body, therefore, begin to diminish more or less perceptibly. At this period _tea comes in as a medicine to arrest the waste_, to keep the body from falling away so fast, and thus to enable the less energetic powers of digestion still to supply as much as is needed to repair the wear and tear of the solid tissues.’ No wonder, therefore, says he, ‘_that the aged female, who has barely enough income to buy what are called the common necessaries of life, should yet spend a portion of her small gains in purchasing her ounce of tea. She can live quite as well on less common food when she takes her tea along with it_; while she feels lighter at the same time, more cheerful, and fitter for her work, because of the indulgence.’ (The italics are my own for comparison with those that follow.)

All this is based upon the researches of Lehmann and others, who measured the work of the vital furnace by the quantity of ashes produced—the urea and phosphoric acid excreted. But there is also another method of measuring the same, that of collecting the expired breath and determining the quantity of carbonic acid given off by combustion. This method is imperfect, inasmuch as it only measures a portion of the carbonic acid which is given off. The skin is also a respiratory organ, co-operating with the lungs in evolving carbonic acid.

Dr. Edward Smith adopted the method of measuring the respired carbonic acid only. His results were first published in ‘The Philosophical Transactions’ of 1859, and again in Chapter XXXV. of his volume on ‘Food,’ International Scientific Series.

After stating, in the latter, the details of the experiments, which include depth of respiration as well as amount of carbonic acid respired, he says: ‘Hence it was proved beyond all doubt that tea is a most powerful respiratory excitant. As it causes an evolution of carbon greatly beyond that which it supplies, it follows that it must powerfully promote those vital changes in food which ultimately produce the carbonic acid to be evolved. Instead, therefore, of supplying nutritive matter, it causes the assimilation and transformation of other foods.’

Now, note the following practical conclusions, which I quote in Dr. Smith’s own words, but take the liberty of rendering in italics those passages that I wish the reader to specially compare with the preceding quotations from Johnston: ‘In reference to nutrition, we may say that _tea increases waste_, since it promotes the transformation of food without supplying nutriment, and increases the loss of heat without supplying fuel, and _it is therefore especially adapted to the wants of those who usually eat too much_, and after a full meal, when the process of assimilation should be quickened, but _is less adapted to the poor and ill-fed_, and during fasting.’ He tells us very positively that ‘to take tea before a meal is as absurd as not to take it after a meal, unless the system be at all times replete with nutritive material.’ And, again: ‘Our experiments have sufficed to show how tea may be _injurious if taken with deficient food, and thereby exaggerate the evils of the poor_;’ and, again: ‘The conclusions at which we arrived after our researches in 1858 were, that tea should not be taken without food, unless after a full meal; or with insufficient food; or by the young or very feeble; and that _its essential action is to waste the system or consume food_, by promoting vital action which it does not support, and they have not been disproved by any subsequent scientific researches.’

This final assertion may be true, and to those who ‘go in for the last thing out,’ the latest novelty or fashion in science, literature, or millinery, the absence of any refutation of later date is quite enough.

But how about the previous ‘scientific researches’ of Lehmann, who, on all such subjects, is about the highest authority that can be quoted. His three volumes on ‘Physiological Chemistry,’ translated and republished by the Cavendish Society, stand pre-eminent as the best-written, most condensed, and complete work on the subject, and his original researches constitute a lifetime’s work, not of mere random change-ringing among the elements of obscure and insignificant organic compounds, but of judiciously selected chemical work, having definite philosophical aims and objects.

It is evident from the passages I have emphatically quoted that Dr. Smith flatly contradicts Lehmann, and arrives at directly contradictory physiological results and practical inferences.

Are we, therefore, to conclude that he has blundered in his analysis, or that Lehmann has done so?

On carefully comparing the two sets of investigations, I conclude that there is no necessary contradiction _in the facts_: that both may be, and in all probability are, quite correct as regards their chemical results; but that Dr. Smith has only attacked half the problem, while Lehmann has grasped the whole.

All the popular stimulants, refreshing drugs, and ‘pick-me-ups’ have two distinct and opposite actions—an immediate exaltation which lasts for a certain period, varying with the drug and the constitution of its victim, and a subsequent depression proportionate to the primary exaltation, but, as I believe, always exceeding it either in duration or intensity, or both, thus giving as a nett or mean result a loss of vitality.

Dr. Smith’s experiments only measured the carbonic acid exhaled from the lungs _during the first stage_, the period of exaltation. His experiments were extended to 50 minutes, 71 minutes, 65 minutes, and in one case to 1 hour and 50 minutes. It is worthy of note that, in Experiment 1, 100 grains of black tea were given to two persons, and the duration of the experiment was 50 and 71 minutes; the average increase was 71 and 68 cubic inches per minute, while in No. 6, with the same dose and the carbonic acid collected during 1 hour and 50 minutes, the average increase per minute was only 47·5 cubic inches. These indicate a decline of the exaltation, and the curves on his diagrams show the same. His coffee results were similar.

We all know that the ‘refreshing’ action of tea often extends over a considerable period. My own experiments on myself show that it continues about three or four hours, and that of beer or wine less than one hour (moderate doses in each case).

I have tested this by walking measured distances after taking the stimulant and comparing with my walking powers when taking no other beverage than cold water. The duration of the tea stimulation has been also measured (painfully so) by the duration of sleeplessness when female seduction has led me to drink tea late in the evening. The duration of coffee is about one-third less than tea.

Lehmann’s experiments extending over weeks (days instead of minutes), measured the whole effect of the alkaloid and oil of the coffee during both the periods of exaltation and depression, and, therefore, supplied a mean or total result which accords with ordinary everyday experience. It is well known that the pot of tea of the poor needlewoman subdues the natural craving for food; the habitual smoker claims the same merit for his pipe, and the chewer for his quid. Wonderful stories are told of the long abstinence of the drinkers of maté, chewers of betel-nut, Siberian fungus, coca-leaf, and pepper-wort, and the smokers and eaters of haschisch, &c. Not only is the sense of hunger allayed, but less food is demanded for sustaining life.

It is a curious fact that similar effects should be produced, and similar advantages claimed, for the use of a drug which is totally different in its other chemical properties and relations. ‘White arsenic,’ or arsenious acid, is the oxide of a metal, and far as the poles asunder from the alkaloids, alcohols, and aromatic resins in chemical classification. But it does check the waste of the tissues, and is eaten by the Styrians and others with physiological effects curiously resembling those of its chemical antipodeans above named. Foremost among these physiological effects is that of ‘making the food appear to go farther.’

It is strange that Liebig or any physiologist who accepts his views of vital chemistry, should claim this diminution of the normal waste and renewal of tissue as a merit, seeing that, according to Liebig, life itself is the product of such change, and death the result of its cessation. But in the eagerness that has been displayed to justify existing indulgences, this claim has been extensively made by men who ought to know better than to admit such a plea.

I speak, as before, of the _habitual_ use of such drugs, not of their occasional medicinal use. The waste of the body may be going on with killing rapidity, as in fever, and then such medicines may save life, provided always that the body has not become ‘tolerant,’ or partially insensible, to them by daily usage. I once watched a dangerous case of typhoid fever. Acting under the instructions of skilful medical attendants, and aided by a clinical thermometer and a seconds watch, I so applied small doses of brandy at short intervals as to keep down both pulse and temperature within the limits of fatal combustion. The patient had scarcely tasted alcohol before this, and therefore it exerted its maximum efficacy. I was surprised at the certain response of both pulse and temperature to this most valuable medicine and most pernicious beverage.

The argument that has been the most industriously urged in favour of all the vice-drugs, and each in its turn, is that miserable apology that has been made for every folly, every vice, every political abuse, every social crime (such as slavery, polygamy, &c.), when the time has arrived for reformation. I cannot condescend to seriously argue against it, but merely state the fact that the widely-diffused practice of using some kind of stimulating drug has been claimed as a sufficient proof of the necessity or advantage of such practice. I leave my readers to bestow on such a plea the treatment they may think it deserves. Those who believe that a rational being should have rational grounds for his conduct will treat this customary refuge of blind conservatism as I do.

I recommend tea drinkers who desire to practically investigate the subject for themselves to repeat the experiment that I have made. After establishing the habit of taking tea at a particular hour, suddenly relinquish it altogether. The result will be more or less unpleasant, in some cases seriously so. My symptoms were a dull headache and intellectual sluggishness during the remainder of the day—and if compelled to do any brain-work, such as lecturing or writing, I did it badly. This, as I have already said, is the diseased condition induced by the habit. These symptoms vary with the amount of the customary indulgence and the temperament of the individual. A rough, lumbering, insensible navvy may drink a quart or two of tea, or a few gallons of beer, or several quarterns of gin, with but small results of any kind. I know an omnibus-driver who makes seven double journeys daily, and his ‘reglars’ are half a quartern of gin at each terminus—_i.e._ 1¾ pints daily, exclusive of extras. This would render most men helplessly drunk, but he is never drunk, and drives well and safely.

Assuming, then, that the experimenter has taken sufficient daily tea to have a sensible effect, he will suffer on leaving it off. Let him persevere in the discontinuance, in spite of brain languor and dull headache. He will find that day by day the languor will diminish, and in the course of time (about a fortnight or three weeks in my case) he will be weaned. He will retain from morning to night the full, free, and steady use of all his faculties; will get through his day’s work without any fluctuation of working ability (provided, of course, no other stimulant is used). Instead of his best faculties being dependent on a drug for their awakening, he will be in the condition of true manhood—_i.e._ able to do his best in any direction of effort, simply in reply to moral demand; able to do whatever is right and advantageous, because his reason shows that it is so. The sense of duty is to such a free man the only stimulus demanded for calling forth his uttermost energies.

If he again returns to his habitual tea, he will again be reduced to more or less of dependence upon it. This condition of dependence is a state of disease precisely analogous to that which is induced by opium and other drugs that operate by temporary abnormal cerebral exaltation. The pleasurable sensations enjoyed by the opium-eater or smoker or morphia injector are more intense than those of the tea-drinker, and the reaction proportionally greater.

I must not leave this subject without a word or two in reference to a widely prevailing and very mischievous fallacy. Many argue and actually believe that because a given drug has great efficiency in curing disease, it must do good if taken under ordinary conditions of health.

No high authorities are demanded for the refutation of this. A little common sense properly used is quite sufficient. It is evident that a medicine, properly so-called, is something which is capable of producing a disturbing or alterative effect on the body generally or some particular organ. The skill of the physician consists in so applying this disturbing agency as to produce an alteration of the state of disease, a direct conversion of the state of disease to a state of health, if possible (which is rarely the case), or more usually the conversion of one state of disease into another of milder character. But, when we are in a state of sound health, any disturbance or alteration must be a change for the worse, must throw us out of health to an extent proportionate to the potency of the drug.

I might illustrate this by a multitude of familiar examples, but they would carry me too far away from my proper subject. There is, however, one class of such remedies which are directly connected with the chemistry of cookery. I refer to the condiments that act as ‘tonics,’ excluding common salt, which is an article of food, though often miscalled a condiment. Salt is food simply because it supplies the blood with one of its normal and necessary constituents, chloride of sodium, without which we cannot live. A certain quantity of it exists in most of our ordinary food, but not always sufficient.

Cayenne pepper may be selected as a typical example of a condiment properly so-called. Mustard is a food and condiment combined; this is the case with some others. Curry powders are mixtures of very potent condiments with more or less of farinaceous materials, and sulphur compounds, which, like the oil of mustard, of onions, garlic, &c., may have a certain amount of special nutritive value.

The mere condiment is a stimulating drug that does its work directly upon the inner lining of the stomach, by exciting it to increased and abnormal activity. A dyspeptic may obtain immediate relief by using cayenne pepper. Among the advertised patent medicines is a pill bearing the very ominous name of its compounder, the active constituent of which is cayenne. Great relief and temporary comfort is commonly obtained by using it as a ‘dinner pill.’ If thus used only as a temporary remedy for an acute and temporary, or exceptional, attack of indigestion all is well, but the cayenne, whether taken in pills or dusted over the food or stewed with it in curries or any otherwise, is one of the most cruel of slow poisons when taken _habitually_. Thousands of poor wretches are crawling miserably towards their graves, the victims of the multitude of maladies of both mind and body that are connected with chronic, incurable dyspepsia, all brought about by the habitual use of cayenne and its condimental cousins.

The usual history of these victims is, that they began by over-feeding, took the condiment to force the stomach to do more than its healthful amount of work, using but a little at first. Then the stomach became tolerant of this little, and demanded more; then more, and more, and more, until at last inflammation, ulceration, torpidity, and finally the death of the digestive powers, accompanied with all that long train of miseries to which I have referred. India is their special fatherland. Englishmen, accustomed to an active life at home, and a climate demanding much fuel-food for the maintenance of animal heat, go to India, crammed, maybe, with Latin, but ignorant of the laws of health; cheap servants promote indolence, tropical heat diminishes respiratory oxidation, and the appetite naturally fails.

Instead of understanding this failure as an admonition to take smaller quantities of food, or food of less nutritive and combustive value, such as carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons and albumenoids, they regard it as a symptom of ill-health, and take curries, bitter ale, and other tonics or appetising condiments, which, however mischievous in England, are far more so there.

I know several men who have lived rationally in India, and they all agree that the climate is especially favourable to longevity, provided bitter beer, and all other alcoholic drinks, all peppery condiments, and flesh foods are avoided. The most remarkable example of vigorous old age I have ever met was a retired colonel eighty-two years of age, who had risen from the ranks, and had been fifty-five years in India without furlough; drunk no alcohol during that period; was a vegetarian in India, though not so in his native land. I guessed his age to be somewhere about sixty. He was a Scotchman, and an ardent student of the works of both George and Dr. Andrew Combe.

A correspondent inquires whether I class cocoa amongst the stimulants. So far as I am able to learn, it should not be so classed, but I cannot speak absolutely. Mere chemistry supplies no answer to this question. It is purely a physiological subject, to be studied by observation of effects. Such observations may be made by anybody whose system has not become ‘tolerant’ of the substance in question. My own experience of cocoa in all its forms is that it is not stimulating in any sensible degree. I have acquired no habit of using it, and yet I can enjoy a rich cup or bowl of cocoa or chocolate just before bed-time without losing any sleep. When I am occasionally betrayed into taking a late cup of coffee or tea, I repent it for some hours after going to bed. My inquiries among other people, who are not under the influence of that most powerful of all arguments, the logic of inclination, have confirmed my own experience.

I should, however, add that some authorities have attributed exhilarating properties to the _theobromine_ or nitrogenous alkaloid of cocoa. Its composition nearly resembles that of theine, as the following (from Johnston) shows:

Theine Theobromine Carbon 49·80 46·43 Hydrogen 5·08 4·20 Nitrogen 28·83 35·85 Oxygen 16·29 13·52 ------ ------ 100·00 100·00

It exists in the cocoa bean in about the same proportion as the theine in tea, but in making a cup of cocoa we use a much greater weight of cocoa than of tea in a cup of tea. If, therefore, the properties of theobromine were similar to those of theine, we should feel the stimulating effects much more decidedly.

The alkaloid of tea and coffee in its pure state has been administered to animals, and found to produce paralysis, but I am not aware that theobromine has acted similarly.

Another essential difference between cocoa and tea or coffee is that cocoa is, strictly speaking, a food. We do not merely make an infusion of the cacao bean, but eat it bodily in the form of a soup. It is highly nutritious, one of the most nutritious foods in common use. When travelling on foot in mountainous and other regions, where there was a risk of spending the night _al fresco_ and supperless, I have usually carried a cake of chocolate in my knapsack, as the most portable and unchangeable form of concentrated nutriment, and have found it most valuable. On one occasion I went astray on the Kjolenfjeld, in Norway, and struggled for about twenty-four hours without food or shelter. I had no chocolate then, and sorely repented my improvidence. Many other pedestrians have tried chocolate in like manner, and all I know have commended its great ‘staying’ properties, simply regarded as food. I therefore conclude that Linnæus was not without strong justification in giving it the name of _theobroma_ (food for the gods), but to confirm this practically the pure nut, the whole nut, and nothing but the nut (excepting the milk and sugar added by the consumer) should be used. Some miserable counterfeits are offered—farinaceous paste, flavoured with cocoa and sugar. The best sample I have been able to procure is the ship cocoa prepared for the Navy. This is nothing but the whole nut unsweetened, ground, and crushed to an impalpable paste. It requires a little boiling, and when milk alone is used, with due proportion of sugar, it is a _theobroma_. Condensed milk diluted, and without further sweetening, may be used.

The following are the results of the analyses of two samples of cocoa by Payen:

Cacao butter 48 50 Albumen, fibrin, and other nitrogenous matter 21 20 Theobromine 4 2 Starch, with traces of sugar 11 10 Cellulose 3 2 Colouring matter, aromatic essence traces Mineral matter 3 4 Water 10 12 --- --- 100 100

The very large proportion of fat shows that the Italians are right in their mode of using their breakfast cup of chocolate. They cut their roll into ‘fingers,’ and dip it in the ‘aurora’ instead of spreading butter on it.

Vegetable food generally contains an excess of cellulose and a deficiency of fat; therefore cocoa, with its excess of fat and deficiency of cellulose, is theoretically indicated as a very desirable adjunct to an ordinary vegetarian dietary. The few experiments I have made by perpetrating the culinary heresy of adding cocoa to oatmeal-porridge and other _purées_, to mashed potatoes, turnips, carrots, boiled rice, sago, tapioca, &c., prove that vegetarians have much to learn in the cookery of cocoa. During two months’ sojourn in Milan my daily breakfast consisted of bread, grapes, and powdered chocolate. Each grape was bitten across, one-half eaten pure and simple, then the cut and pulpy face of the other half was dipped in the chocolate powder, and eaten with as much as adhered to it. I have never been better fed.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Ordinary tea contains about 2 per cent. of this. It may easily be obtained by making a strong infusion and _slowly_ evaporating it to dryness, then placing this dried extract on a watch-glass or evaporating-dish, covering it with an inverted wineglass, tumbler, or conical cap of paper. A white fume rises and condenses on the cool cover in the form of minute colourless crystals. The tea itself may be used in the same manner as the dried extract, but the quantity of crystals will be less.