y, when all these circumstances are considered respecting the
pernicious mode of preparation, and particularly the poisonous
qualities they are also liable to contract from the nature of their
package, every person must be convinced to what a loss of health, if
not of life, the constant use of such teas must expose them. Such
evidence of their deleterious tendency is almost sufficient to alarm
mankind against so prevailing an evil, without any further arguments;
but as health is too precious not to require every possible proof that
can persuade us to avoid what so immediately threatens our existence,
the following arguments and testimonies of the bad qualities of foreign
teas must not be omitted. Previous, however, to an investigation of
their effects, it may be necessary to say a few words respecting

THE MANNER OF USING.

Foreign tea, as before observed, being taken as two principal meals of
our daily aliment, is undoubtedly one great reason of the constitution
of the people having suffered an entire change in its system. That
vigour, spirits, and longevity, which characterised us in the last
century, is totally subverted; disease, dismay, and debility, now lead
us prematurely to the grave, where we end an existence too deplorable
to excite the least desire for a longer continuance. Dr. Priestley
states, very justly, in his Medical Essays, that it is curious to
observe the revolution which hath taken place, within this century, in
the constitutions of the inhabitants of Europe. Inflammatory diseases
more rarely occur, and in general are much less rapid and violent in
their progress than formerly; nor do they admit of the same
antiphlogistic method of cure which was practised with success a
hundred years ago. The experienced Sydenham makes forty ounces of blood
the mean quantity to be drawn in the acute rheumatism; whereas this
disease, as it now appears in the London hospitals, will not bear above
half that evacuation. Vernal intermittents are frequently cured by a
vomit and the bark, without venaesection, which is a proof that, at
present, they are accompanied with fewer symptoms of inflammation than
they were wont to be. This advantageous change, however, is more than
counterbalanced by the introduction of a numerous class of nervous
aliments, in a greater measure, unknown to our ancestors, but which now
prevail universally, and are complicated with almost every other
distemper. The bodies of men are enfeebled an