On means for the prolongation of life.

  • Hermann David Weber
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On means for the prolongation of life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    of taking it as part of the principal meals {high teas) to some people rather injurious. When, however, great authorities condemn tea entirely as a poison, and class it together with the eating of large quantities of meat or the immoderate consumption of alcoholic stimulants as a most potent producer of gout and diseases of the heart and blood-vessels, and of the nervous system, we are not prepared to accept their view, provided the consumption of it is moderate and the making of it judicious. It is true that the tea-leaves (Haig [48 and 49] and Hutchison [59]) contain a certain amount of purin (methyl-purin), but if the quantity of tea consumed during twenty-four hours does not exceed the infusion of 40 to 80 grains, and if it is not allowed to stand long, it can scarcely be regarded as a serious danger, barring a small number of exceptional persons. We have not seen much real gout amongst great tea drinkers if they were at the same time moderate with regard to meat and alcohol. Tea, Sir Wm. Roberts says, is an inhibitor of salivary diges- tion, probably through the tannin contained in it [103]. Black teas agree with most persons better than green teas, and good qualities of Chinese teas better than Indian teas in the same