d enervated; and it is not
uncommon to observe very high degrees of irritability under the
external appearance of great strength and robustness. The
hypochondriac, palsies, cachexies, dropsies, and all those diseases
which arise from laxity and debility, are, in our days, endemic every
where; and the hysterics, which used to be peculiar to the women, as
the name itself indicates, now attacks both sexes indiscriminately. It
is evident that so great a revolution could not be effected without the
concurrence of many causes; but amongst these, I apprehend, the present
general use of tea holds the first and principal rank. The second cause
may perhaps be allotted to excess in spirituous liquors. This
pernicious custom owes its rise to the former, which, by the lowness
and depression of spirits it occasions, renders it almost necessary to
have recourse to what is cordial and exhilarating; and hence proceeds
those odious and disgraceful habits of intemperance with which too many
of the softer sex of every degree are now, alas! chargeable. These are
the sentiments of a character distinguished for his elaborate
researches and judicious discoveries in almost every branch of liberal
science. It may therefore be safely concluded, that the general manner
of using India tea morning and evening has been, and is, the principal
cause of the greater part of the diseases with which the natives of
Europe are now afflicted. When it is considered that the first meal
which is taken to recruit the body, after the loss it sustains from the
insensible perspiration of the preceding night, and to prepare it for
the avocations of the succeeding day, is India tea, who can be
surprised that nature should rapidly become the victim of disease?
Thus, instead of being supported by nutritious aliment, its nerves are
enfeebled, its spirits diminished, and all its functions enveloped with
the gloom of melancholy. Even in the afternoon, when nature is
exhausted by care and fatigue, we fly for refreshment to tea, which,
instead of bracing, still further relaxes the unnerved system. Such are
the evil effects of the imprudent manner in which this pernicious drug
is so constantly and universally used. But how must these evils appear
in their extent, when the following view is taken of India teas, with
regard to their variety of injurious EFFECTS.

In all the physical experiments that have been made upon India teas,
there is, perhaps, none that shews its acid ast