food. This quality accounts for the acrimonious effects too many have
experienced by its use. Many have not only had their blood
impoverished, but corrupted by the constant drinking of these teas.
Whether it arises from any positive acrimonious salt it naturally
possesses, or from any acquired corrosiveness from its mode of drying,
is not here necessary to enquire: it is only requisite to state that a
pernicious effect is too fatally experienced by those who are
unfortunately its slaves.

How India tea can be serviceable in fevers is not easy to be
understood; for, if it has that effect upon the nerves to excite
watchfulness, it must greatly tend to increase, instead of diminish
feverish symptoms. Dr. Buchan attributes even one cause of the palsy to
drinking much tea or coffee, &c. and, in a note, he subjoins: "Many
people imagine that tea has no tendency to hurt the nerves, and that
drinking the same quantity of warm water would be equally pernicious.
This, however, seems to be a mistake, many persons drinking three or
four cups of warm milk and water daily, without feeling any bad
consequences; yet the same quantity of tea will make their hands shake
for twenty-four hours. That tea affects the nerves is likewise evident
from its preventing sleep, occasioning giddiness, dimness of the sight,
sickness, &c."

With regard to India teas possessing the quality of exciting the
spirits, this, like every other stimulus, either by constant use loses
its effect, or unnerves the system it is meant to strengthen. The
nerves through which the animal spirits circulate being, like the
strings of a violin or harpsichord, too frequently braced, lose, at
last, their natural tensity, and thus render the human frame one system
of debility.

Having thus, as briefly as possible, stated that even their ascribed
virtues are either derogatory to all physical principle, or else
destructive to the constitution, from their constant use, the nature of
India teas is next considered, with respect to what appears to be their
chief component parts, from analyzation.

Teas have been found to consist principally of narcotic salts, some
astringent oil, and earth. These being found in greater quantities in
bohea than in green teas, those who have very sensible and elastic
nerves must be seized with a greater tremor after drinking the former
than the latter. The continual and regular influx of the nervous juices
is stopped by their component fibres b