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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75599 ***
+
+
+
+  LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. =1389=
+  Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
+
+                         The Truth About the
+                            Tobacco Habit
+
+                          T. Swann Harding
+
+
+  HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
+         GIRARD, KANSAS
+
+
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1929,
+                       Haldeman-Julius Company
+
+
+               PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+                     THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TOBACCO
+                                HABIT
+
+
+A young friend of mine of the trouser-wearing male sex recently
+developed a pain in his stomach. He decided to wait it out. But it
+was an indecent as well as an insidious sort of pain and finally
+persisted so long that he was driven to consult a physician for
+moral support. The physician said, “Do you smoke?” My friend said
+“Yes.” The physician said, “That’s it, of course. Quit smoking.
+Three dollars, please.” My friend went away, quit smoking, and the
+pain persisted. He returned to the doctor. He was now given a little
+silver nitrate. He went away, but he came back again. By that time
+the physician was really angry. He said, “You’ve smoked yourself
+into a nice stomach ulcer, you have. I’ll have to operate. I hate to
+but I have to.” Just then buckwheat cakes and sausage made my friend
+violently ill one day and he deleted them from his diet. The pain
+left and has not yet played a return engagement. He smokes more than
+ever now, but he throws away longer butts.
+
+Another friend of mine classifying in the male sex which so far
+tends to avoid wearing trousers--much--went to a physician. She
+complained of a rash which she said afflicted her all winter.
+Fortunately for the physician she smoked energetically. He therefore
+told her to quit and called the next patient. Since she knew that
+she smoked in summer as well as in winter she did not quit but, by
+chance, consulted a scientific nutrition investigator. There was no
+reason for this; she did it irrationally and by pure inadvertance.
+But he asked, “Do you eat anything in winter that you do not eat
+in summer?” And she at first said, “No,” because that is the most
+natural answer to make under the circumstances. Then later, after a
+half an hour’s cross-examination, she said, “Yes, oatmeal.” He said,
+“Try cutting that out for a while.” So she conquered this craving,
+but continued to smoke, and the rash departed for parts unknown. She
+had an idiosyncrasy for oatmeal proteins just as some people have for
+strawberry or egg proteins, and her rash was thus caused.
+
+In a moment of more violent perversity I went not long ago to a
+lecture advocating ruthless war on tobacco. In spite of the success
+women have just had in smoking anti-cigarette reformers into
+comas, the speaker, Daniel H. Kress, M. D., was President of the
+Anti-Cigarette Alliance. Since he was a regular doctor in active
+practice I had a right to expect the presentation of a scientific
+case against tobacco.
+
+This gentleman, who is personally one of the most delightful old
+souls in the world, actually completed his lecture without ever
+once citing a scientific authority, without once grounding upon
+irrefutable scientific fact and without departing widely from the
+most trivial and childish sort of argument from analogy. Thus he
+stated that a famous war hero did not smoke. Wilson did not smoke.
+Hughes does not smoke. The inmates of reform schools all smoke.
+Smokers are physically and mentally unsafe!
+
+This may all be true for all I can prove to the contrary, but what
+of it? Many war heroes smoke. Grant certainly did. Small, defective
+and generally backward children normally spring from parents who
+underfeed them, who are themselves defective in heredity and who
+neglect to instruct their children in any essential matters. Can
+you prove that smoking alone either stunted them or put them in the
+reform school? You cannot. Criminals are predominantly religious
+according to their professions of faith. Did Christianity make
+them criminals? If smokers are mentally unsafe may I fervently
+declaim--God help research!
+
+You hear it said that the children of smoking mothers are
+inferior. Are they? How can it be proven? As a matter of fact no
+scientific experiment could possibly be carried on to prove this,
+for statistics, being riddled by all sorts of idiosyncrasies and
+unknowns, are grossly unscientific. To prove it you might have the
+same mother have two children at separate times by the same father,
+smoking while she bore one and abstaining for the control child. But
+that would prove nothing. Each child is a unique individual arising
+from a unique chromosome mixture. The mother and father would of
+necessity be older in the one case than in the other. Nourishment and
+other environmental conditions would inevitably vary. The experiment
+is impossible. Yet until such an experiment becomes possible we are
+merely voicing opinions when we say that smoking causes inferior
+children. The actual cause may be any of a thousand other and
+extraneous factors.
+
+When you consider how very often tobacco smoking is mentioned
+therapeutically and how universally it seems to be assumed that it
+is deleterious to health it is rather disconcerting to discover so
+little reliable scientific work to confirm this prevalent viewpoint.
+In fact practically no comprehensive, systematic work has been done
+by scientific research to prove that smoking is exceedingly harmful
+to the human system. Like so many other human preconceptions this
+assumption rests largely upon faith. To the acutely prejudiced
+non-smokers smoking seems so utterly perverse that it surely must be
+physically injurious.
+
+A rational esthetic case could be made out against certain women
+smoking. True, the modern woman so sedulously apes the other sex that
+to deprive her of her cigarette is simply to deprive her gracelessly
+of her masculinity. We should never do that. But the spectacle of a
+really pretty, effeminate woman smoking is nevertheless an esthetic
+affront. Nothing the average man can do could make him look very much
+worse than he does naturally so even this slight objection does not
+apply bisexually.
+
+But we have wandered, and I am of course at fault, having set
+out laudably to lead our thought procession. In my search of the
+scientific literature the nearest thing to an authority I came
+across was perhaps Sir Humphrey Rolleston, Baronet, K. C. B.; F.
+R. C. P. and M. D. of Cambridge, England, physician to King George
+V in his late 1928 illness. He discusses “The Medical Aspects of
+Tobacco” in such staid British medical journals as _The Lancet_ and
+_The Practitioner_. He reviews every possible lesion that might
+spring from tobacco smoking, and they are many--quite as many
+indeed as may spring from over eating artichokes or drinking three
+gallons of well-water daily. He sets himself flatly against animal
+experimentation in this matter because this cannot possibly take
+idiosyncrasies into account, and reminds us that humans are both
+highly individualized and exceedingly complex.
+
+Rolleston then remarks that cigarettes are less invidious than pipes
+or cigars because cigarette smoke is more air diluted. He finds
+a wide diversity of opinion as to the harmfulness of tobacco; he
+doubts that it ever affects the nervous system greatly and believes
+that coffee and tea usually produce the heart symptoms attributed to
+smoking and that a latent venereal disease accounts for much smoker’s
+cancer. He doubts also that dilation of the esophagus, dilation of
+the stomach, acid stomach and nervous dyspepsia are often due to
+tobacco while he commends the mildly laxative properties of a pipe
+after breakfast.
+
+Finally our baronet says, and the medical journal sustains him
+editorially, that in view of the universality of the habit of tobacco
+smoking the rarity of the organic lesions that can be traced out as
+undoubtedly due to that habit, beyond all question, is little less
+than surprising. This, I should say, is the woodpile Ethiopian. It is
+one thing for a physician to lean back and say cut down on tobacco,
+coffee, fried stuff and pastry. It is quite another for him to prove
+scientifically that these indulgences have undeniably caused the
+patient’s present low physical estate.
+
+D. T. Barry, F. R. C. S. and M. D. of the Physiological Department,
+University College, Cork, is not very far off when he writes: “The
+physiological effects of tobacco, as our present knowledge reveals
+them, are not sufficiently deleterious to counter-balance the benign
+influence of the drug in other respects. It may be abused, of course,
+but so may food, and this latter form of abuse is, in my opinion,
+responsible for greater evils than those resulting from the abuse of
+tobacco.”
+
+In this connection another authority, Armstrong-Jones, remarks that
+tobacco smoking in moderation is not injurious to adults but is a
+valuable sedative. It contributes to calm thought and efficient
+mental functioning. Worst of all he casually remarks that cigarette
+smoking, preferably without a holder, is the least injurious form of
+tobacco indulgence. Even allowing for the fact that the gentleman has
+seen some of the less comely holders I have witnessed in my time, his
+statements give pause.
+
+Of course Earp’s well-known studies at Antioch College, Ohio, did
+indicate that non-smokers showed an intellectual superiority over
+smokers, but whether these things were cause and effect or mere
+harmless concomitants who knows? Many very eminent intellectual
+giants smoked excessively. Perhaps they would have achieved absolute
+omnipotence or omniscience had they been non-smokers. Again, who
+knows?
+
+It is significant that Earp’s non-smokers showed no physical
+superiority over his smokers; that is, it is interesting when you
+remember that the American university is an institution of athletic
+training wherein some intellectual education is offered to the
+feeble-bodied as a consolation prize. Intelligence tests are not
+affected by smoking, the non-smokers ranking just as high after
+smoking as before they had ever touched the vile weed. Finally, the
+correlation between the length of a student’s indulgence in tobacco
+and his scholarship is so negligible as to indicate that there can be
+no chronic cumulative poisoning from tobacco.
+
+Laymen do not realize how difficult it is to trace a diseased
+condition to a specific cause even when bacteria abound, as is
+not the case in smoking. For instance certain bacteria so closely
+resemble each other that even experts are hard put to tell them
+apart. Diphtheria germs possess such a dead ringer. Real diphtheria
+cultures were once sent out to clinical laboratories along with
+other cultures containing no diphtheria germs, but germs so closely
+resembling them that the laboratories involved returned all sorts of
+results. Some reported that the actual diphtheria cultures contained
+no diptheria germs at all; others that some of the germs simulating
+diphtheria in appearance were positively the real thing. So a tooth
+or a tonsil may contain a germ so similar to those found at the seat
+of secondary infection that they are indistinguishable, yet the germ
+may be harmless in one case and virulent in the other.
+
+Certainly it is unlikely that we carry virulent germs about in teeth
+and tonsils for long years. For one thing they get acclimated to
+us and can change their murderous habits. For another we get used
+to them. This organism of ours is an hospitable sort of thing.
+The body tends to adjust in neighborly fashion to germs upon long
+acquaintance, or familiarity breeds contempt, just as it adjusts to
+morphine, to opium, to over-eating, to the corrosive harness oils
+now sold as bootleg whiskey and to tobacco, of course. Perhaps long
+acquaintance ripens into real friendship and mutual aid.
+
+Nicotine is the active agent in tobacco. Mendenhall tells us that
+tobacco sometimes stimulates and sometimes depresses the bodily
+sensory mechanism, depending largely upon the state of fatigue
+prevalent at the moment. When stimulation occurs the effect is
+precisely that of a certain portion of high potential rest, for in
+this case, says our authority, tobacco has rested us artificially.
+
+Certain work seems to prove quite clearly that tobacco slows down
+the gastric motility as well as pepsin and rennin secretion. At
+least it produced such results on certain individuals, although the
+majority of mankind may be immune for all we know. This would slow
+down digestion, but it takes considerable smoking to accomplish such
+a result even with the susceptible, and one cigarette after a meal,
+even a cigar, would scarcely be sufficient. It has also been stated
+in scientific journals that tobacco _may_ play an etiologic role in
+gastric neurosis, in gastritis, in ulcer and cancer of the stomach
+and, likewise, in mouth or throat carcinoma.
+
+But, putting your mind rigidly to the task, can you readily think of
+anything from hot soup to worry that has not at some time by some
+person been accused of causing these conditions? Why is this? Holding
+a clay pipe in the mouth may cause mouth cancer; holding an ordinary
+pipe might; continuously holding a roughened stick there might also,
+with tobacco never involved. How do these anti-tobacco ideas arise?
+
+Why are we told that so many things cause ulcer, cancer, kidney
+trouble, heart lesions or high blood pressure? Why are there so
+many theories of evolution or of creation, or of salvation for
+that matter? Why are there so many and such diverse theories of
+economic and political betterment? Why are there such varied schools
+of treatment often imposing diametrically opposed procedures to
+combat the very same maladies? Why do men differ so widely in their
+hypotheses about government, religion, tobacco, women? Simply because
+nobody as yet knows anything positively definite about these matters,
+and just so long as this condition of inspired ignorance persists, so
+long will infinitely varied opinions be inevitable.
+
+In chemistry, in physics and in bacteriology, for instance, we do
+possess certain definite knowledge and we can rightfully cite certain
+facts. In sociology, in politics and in economics, we possess certain
+dogmas or beliefs and we can pardonably express certain theories or
+opinions--so long as we candidly admit their opinionative status. But
+when we get beyond a certain definite point in any science, even in
+physics and chemistry, we begin to hypothecate just like an economic
+determinist or an anti-vivisectionist or a religious fundamentalist,
+people who are habitually beyond this point of separating fact from
+belief anyway. We begin to express our opinions vociferously, to
+dress them up in moral overcoats, and to justify them just because we
+do lack certain scientific knowledge.
+
+Thus we can go to the scientific work and find an investigator saying
+that very large quantities of tobacco smoke will paralyze the gastric
+contractile power. All right. But this very same investigator also
+sagely adds that small amounts of the smoke will actually stimulate
+this very gastric contractility and urge along digestion. Or we can
+go to the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, the highest
+current medical authority in the United States. We find a query by
+some doctor on cigarette smoking and we read the reply. Authority
+completely absolves cigarette papers from blame for poison. It adds
+that any cigarette smoker is safer from harm than a tobacco smoker
+of any other sort. For one thing he actually smokes less tobacco. If
+he nervously smokes many cigarettes he throws away longer and longer
+unused portions and thus keeps his consumption at about the same
+figure.
+
+_The Laryngoscope_ should be an authority on throat conditions as it
+is the publication of throat specialists. We find in here a statement
+to the effect that from a medical or laryngeal point of view there
+is no reason why anybody should give up tobacco or alcohol if it
+does them no very apparent harm. This is because the use of both in
+moderation by millions proves the harmlessness of the habit which is,
+in fact, often actually beneficial.
+
+You can go further than that. If you want to be really mean you
+can find an authority to state that visual acuity is increased by
+smoking. When non-smokers smoked for they first time they saw better
+than they did before smoking. The sight of habitual smokers was
+unaffected by an additional smoke. They had already smoked themselves
+into the best possible eye-sight. This may be unreliable testimony.
+Far be it from me to judge it. The point is that it is quite as
+reliable as any of the testimony advanced against the tobacco habit.
+
+In short we are here in a region where exact scientific investigation
+has not yet established reliable criteria of judgment. We cannot
+cite irrefutable facts. We can only express opinions and opinions
+are usually grounded in prejudice. Physicians tend normally to
+prohibit, but they rarely prohibit judiciously because, under our
+present chaotic medical system, they cannot afford to make a sound,
+thorough-going clinical examination of every patient and must regard
+medicine as an art--_i. e._, fall back upon empiricism.
+
+As for prejudice, it amounts to little. Cromwell and his Puritans
+smoked excessively. About 1840 women smoked outrageous stogies and
+cumbersome pipes so shamelessly that men were alarmed and vigorous
+caricatures satirized them in the periodicals of the day. Early in
+the Victorian era smoking was all but a lost art. Today it is again
+in ascendency, yet human depravity has remained at about one level
+throughout.
+
+In an editorial upon the subject during 1925 _The Journal of the
+American Medical Association_ especially emphasized the fact that
+variations in human susceptibility and tolerance were factors as
+yet little understood. Extreme caution in generalization was wisely
+advised on such subjects as the harm inherent in tobacco smoking,
+and the reader was admonished that over-indulgence in turnips or
+parsnips, or even in water, would turn out a great deal worse than he
+might anticipate on immature consideration.
+
+This factor of human individualization is rightly coming to the
+front in medical literature today. Advances in biological chemistry
+constantly attest the fact that each human individual is unique
+chemically. What Smith can do with impunity Jones can only do with
+a prospect of sudden death. This is not a superficial matter, but
+one deep seated in the cellular structure of the human body, a
+thing going back through ages of inheritance via the complex and
+ill-understood chromosome. More and more it is being realized that
+routine diets, prescriptions and prohibitions will not do in all
+cases--in fact are actually unsafe and dangerous in many.
+
+For all we definitely know today with positive assurance we cannot
+deny the proposition that tobacco smoking is probably beneficial to
+many people. Not long ago everybody was urged to go in for bran
+because we all sadly needed roughage. Bran would cure constipation
+and a thousand routine diets spattered the press. It was all very
+well, except that constipation persisted. Today it is realized that
+nervous and psychic factors have much more to do with constipation
+than diet and the parade has set in that direction now. In fact some
+authorities declare that these rough diets have actually had fatal
+consequences in certain instances where a smooth diet was required.
+
+But medical science really does not know sufficient about the
+positive, absolutely undeniable effects of tobacco smoking upon human
+beings to parade in any direction as yet without painful danger of
+finding itself hopelessly bogged in error at some date in the near
+future.
+
+
+                  DEBUNKING “DENICOTINIZED” TOBACCO
+
+Some years ago it was quite evident that the cigarette was doomed.
+Groups of well desiccated females, assisted by large droves of
+impotent he-virgins, met together, assailed the “filthy weed,” and
+determined to abolish it by vituperation if not by legislation.
+Tobacco manufacturers began to feel vague worries, some States passed
+anti-cigarette laws and righteousness seemed about to triumph. Then
+came the war!
+
+War is a great release. We all live pretty prosaic lives. Social
+conventions are harsh and unless we live in Philadelphia or Chicago
+it is not considered courteous, much less expedient, to go out and
+rob, kill and commit arson. War delights in that it releases these
+crude desires which seem to be suppressed and lying potentially in
+wait in the most sedate of us. Men were released to rob, murder and
+commit arson and they did it with a vim and vigor which belies the
+idea that we are becoming a decadent and anemic race.
+
+At the same time war had its disadvantages. A chap needed
+stimulation. He needed whiskey; he needed women; he needed
+cigarettes. He got them all and the dear, good Christian souls
+applied themselves so whole-heartedly to the good work of providing
+needful stimulation that natural smiles began to sprout on technical
+virgins, liquor ceased to draw the sex line and cigarettes were
+actually dispensed by the hands of Christian ladies and gentlemen.
+The tobacco industry was saved.
+
+After the war women decided to continue doing what they had done
+during the war. They decided to retain “This Freedom.” Men decided
+they should not retain it. The Christians decided they should not
+retain it. It was against ethics, morals and law. The women retained
+their freedom and added to it. Among other things they smoked
+cigarettes so indefatigably that a consumption which had commenced to
+decline hopped to a point of unprecedented size.
+
+Women are like that. Men are more civilized, have more modern bodies,
+are younger in an evolutionary sense and respect this nonsense called
+law. Women are much older physiologically--phylogenetically for that
+matter, if you really like long words. They adopt primitive means to
+accomplish their ends and primitive means are always effective. When
+they wanted to smoke they smoked and that was that.
+
+At the same time, however, it is vaguely interesting to many people
+to know whether smoking is injurious. All sorts of ills have been
+laid to its door. But there is this to be said in its favor. In very
+many people smoking is undoubtedly the percussion cap which sets
+in motion a train of conditioned reflexes and enables them to work
+efficiently.
+
+Watson has worked on these conditioned reflexes. Let the young baby
+have a rat. It is not afraid and will play with it happily. But some
+day produce a blinding flash of light or a loud noise just as you
+give it the rat and you have imbedded a conditioned reflex which may
+last its life. It will always fear rats. Watson holds that education
+should address itself to the job of making our conditioned reflexes
+of such nature that they are helpful rather than a hindrance.
+
+Thus a certain man cannot think unless he plays with the keys in
+his pocket. That is the original stimulus which sets his benign
+conditioned reflexes in motion. Another smokes in order to think
+deeply. A third smokes and finds that it is laxative. Perhaps these
+men cannot either think or avoid constipation unless they smoke,
+and the probable reason is that the act of smoking is an original
+stimulus which automatically sets in motion a long series of
+conditioned reflexes of a benign character.
+
+Yet there are people who do not want to run any risks. They want
+to avoid nicotine. Perhaps it is as well that they should. They
+therefore buy cigarettes or cigars or tobacco which have been
+“denicotinized.” To what extent do they succeed in avoiding the
+poison then? The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin
+295, a prosaic scientific-looking thing, pretty well explodes the
+bunk of these tobaccos and it calls a spade a spade. More power to
+the research agencies of the U. S. A. which dare be so outspoken. A
+brief analysis of the results shown seems in order.
+
+Tobaccos were analyzed for nicotine and the percentage given is in
+all cases on a dry basis. First tested were several common brands of
+cigarettes. They ran as follows in nicotine. Take your pick hereafter
+when you buy--
+
+    Cigarette.            Percent Nicotine.
+    Egyptian Deities                   1.28
+    Pall Mall                          1.38
+    Philip Morris                      1.40
+    Lucky Strike                       1.88
+    Camel                              2.21
+    Old Gold                           2.17
+    Capstan Navy Cut                   2.30
+    Chesterfield                       2.53
+    Piedmont                           2.89
+
+Since not even physicians have had any idea how much nicotine common
+brands of cigarettes carried this alone is important. Now how did the
+“denicotinized” cigarettes line up? They ran as follows:
+
+    “Denicotinized”                 Percent
+    Cigarette.                     Nicotine
+    Sano                               2.32
+    Cestrada Virginia                  2.10
+    Dormy Turkish                      1.19
+    Sackett                            1.02
+
+Next I shall list the cigars and the smoking tobacco analyzed--
+
+
+                     Normal
+
+    Reyes de Espana                    1.16
+    Manila                             1.31
+    Knickerbocker                      1.90
+
+
+                “Denicotinized”
+
+    Sano                               1.07
+    O-Nic-O                             .72
+    Sackett                             .67
+
+The smoking tobaccos tested ran--
+
+
+                     Normal
+
+    Blue Boar Pipe                     1.45
+    Weldon Slice                       1.84
+    Hudson Bay Imperial                1.95
+    Gilbert’s Mixture                  2.09
+
+
+                “Denicotinized”
+
+    Dormy Smoking                      2.26
+    Sackett                             .98
+    O-Nic-O                             .97
+
+In short, the average for all brands tested stood 1.77 percent
+nicotine straight and 1.28 percent still in the “denicotinized”
+products. Seventy-two percent of the nicotine remains behind. The
+process is, like the process of removing caffeine from coffees, very
+largely bunk but it is bunk that makes the American people spend
+their money, as Barnum very well knew. A person can with considerable
+ease select an ordinary tobacco which is so near the nicotine content
+of the “denicotinized” varieties that he scarcely seems justified in
+paying the higher prices for the treated product.
+
+Was ever a nation so neurotic over its health as ours? European
+observers are constantly amazed at the imbecile delight we show in
+all sorts of products especially treated to make them less toxic,
+more digestible, less harmful and more beneficial. Just tell an
+American that you have vacuum treated your coffee and have thereby
+removed some obscure organic compounds which normally tie his stomach
+in knots and he will faithfully believe you and buy it. Tell him
+you have taken the nicotine out of his cigarette and though 72
+percent of it is still there he will buy. Tell him Grapenuts make
+his teeth sound and he will buy. Tell him that he can improve his
+health by standing on his head on a cake of ice in a blast furnace
+while somebody shoots a stream of liquid platinum in his left ear and
+you will find some fool to do it in America. Why are we such damned
+fools? I am not going to tell you. I don’t know. But we are.
+
+
+                     IS COFFEE DRINKING HARMFUL?
+
+It is recorded in the annals of history that a certain doctor once
+told a certain patient to drink no coffee. Were you, perchance, the
+patient? I know I was. But why did the doctor say that? Because if we
+stopped there would be more coffee left for him?
+
+It is also recorded that there once lived a certain Arab whose name
+comes down to us as Chadely. Chadely is reputed to have been the
+initial coffee drinker of the world and he drank an extract of the
+berry to combat a continual drowsiness which prevented him from
+attending punctually his religious devotions! In this others of the
+Mohammedan faithful rapidly followed him, and the habit might well be
+cultivated by certain church-going Christians with sedative pastors.
+
+Now I am one of those most unfortunate persons over whom alcohol
+has no appreciable authority. I confess this with shame and deep
+humiliation. Right in this Prohibition Era when various nondescript
+alcoholic beverages are held in higher esteem than ever before in
+our history (for does not the lowliest shellac now become a sacred
+and inviolate symbol of a personal liberty we would not recognize
+in this collectivist country if we saw it?) I can drink one, two or
+even three glasses of high voltage and yet remain placid, neutral,
+passionless, taciturn and erect in posture. So far as I am concerned
+even the dynamic and remorseless cocktail of these days is just so
+much ill-tasting liquid. Isn’t this tragic?
+
+But I would not prohibit the sale, ingurgitation or even the flagrant
+abuse of these curiously synthesized beverages, or even of good
+alcohol drinks. Not for one single prohibitive instant. For I want
+my coffee and some day some bluenose wowser might seek to deprive
+me of the cup that really cheers me. For I can arise in the morning
+hopeless, misanthropic, pessimistic, with a strong suicidal impulse,
+a feeling of uselessness and a Calvinistic conviction of sin--yet
+one cup of good coffee completely reverses my emotions and stirs me
+to optimism, confidence, cheer and incipient exaltation. I can be
+induced to consider new fur coats and parlor rugs.
+
+Or again, in the evening, I may have sunk into a mental stupor,
+becoming in fact so definitely subhuman that I can only listen to
+a radio or read a newspaper--but coffee at once changes the entire
+universe and suffuses me with self-satisfaction, energy, will power
+and complacency--jostles my brain cells rudely against each other
+and clicks out of them what little useful information there is in
+them. Indeed I strongly sympathize with any dull soul who momentarily
+sweeps aside the stagnant miasmas of toil, monotony and misery with a
+swig of ethyl alcohol--in varied disguise. Insensitive to alcohol I
+do exactly the same thing with caffeine.
+
+It is a most curious matter upon which to meditate. The entire
+universe is not something static and permanently postulated by
+definition. It is not even what I made it a moment ago. It is what
+coffee makes me and makes me make it at this moment. Leaving my
+entire environment, debts and all, and my complete mental and somatic
+equipment _in statu quo_ one dash of caffeine completely reorganizes
+the universe for me and as completely modifies my reaction thereto.
+The final test in any scientific experiment takes place when one
+variable factor accomplishes such results while all other factors
+remain completely unaltered. I know my coffee.
+
+But of course this is a world wherein doctors sound solemn tocsins
+to pleasure. You go to them and they almost invariably admonish you
+to quit smoking tobacco and drinking coffee, to have your teeth
+pulled and your tonsils uprooted. Some years ago I myself suffered
+from chronic indigestion. I was on a meticulous diet which lacked
+meat and coffee and I was about ready to accuse coffee alone of all
+my indispositions. But I met a hardy old codger of eighty who drank
+eight cups of strong coffee daily and had but recently reduced his
+consumption from a normal dozen and his vigor, which he attributed to
+seventy years of strong coffee, greatly heartened me. I knew what the
+doctor would say. I didn’t smoke. Teeth and coffee alone were left.
+So I went soberly to the expert in exodontia.
+
+He at first demurred and insisted that I had no teeth meriting
+destruction. But I was desperate. I insisted. So he X-rayed around,
+finally selected an inoffensive and courteous molar and drew it.
+The shock or something proved beneficial. At least I had no more
+indigestion and even learned how to drink two cups of strong coffee
+and go to sleep on the draft. This is the final step in expert coffee
+drinking. When you can perform that feat and outwit your imagination
+you have come into the inner circle of The Sacred Coffee Drinkers’
+Conclave.
+
+But I remained curious. I wondered why doctors said drink no coffee.
+I determined to find out something about this. Botany didn’t get me
+very far. It simply declared “Coffee is the product of a rubiaceous
+plant indigenous to Abyssinia of the _genus_ coffea; there are about
+twenty-five known species, of which coffea Arabica is the most
+important commercially.”
+
+History was slightly more productive. It appeared coffee drinking
+was of respectable age and that the substance derived its name from
+K’hawah, or Kaffa, an Abyssinian Province, and that there it was
+employed as a stimulant for centuries before its introduction into
+Arabia. The Arab physician Khayes, who lived 850-922 A. D., wrote
+on coffee and knowledge of the plant arrived in Europe by the late
+sixteenth century. It is most interesting to remember that these
+Arabian Mohammedans used coffee as an anti-soporific during prolonged
+religious ceremonies. Yet the beverage at first underwent violent
+protest because strictly orthodox and conservative priests held it to
+be intoxicating and hence under the ban of the Koran.
+
+At Constantinople certain dervishes also held that after roasting
+coffee had become a kind of coal which the Prophet had denounced
+as inedible. Thereupon the coffee houses were closed. But a lenient
+mufti later proved to the satisfaction of the faithful that roasted
+coffee was not coal and they were reopened.
+
+The earliest European coffee houses were established, in fact, in
+Constantinople and in Venice. The first one appeared in England in
+1650; out of it grew the Oxford Coffee Club in 1655 and from that
+sprang the Royal Society itself. But alas, convivial gatherings at
+coffee houses became of ill repute; wives complained they could not
+expect their husbands back from errands because they would loiter in
+coffee houses and kings declared that their subjects met at coffee
+houses, became garrulous and bespoke political rebellion. The current
+Volstead, Charles II, therefore, sought to suppress coffee drinking,
+but evidently Anglo-Saxons valued their liberties more then than now
+for the King had little success. Frederick the Great, fearing coffee
+drinking for the more thrifty reason that it caused too much money to
+leave his domain, boldly attributed sterility to indulgence in the
+berry and sought to restrict the use of coffee by a license system.
+
+The medical profession came forward to denounce coffee for all sorts
+of sins. The English Dr. Pecoke accused it of causing leprosy.
+Dr. Duncan of Montpellier in 1706 wrote in opposition to all hot
+beverages while James the I actually composed a royal “Broadside
+Against Coffee.” The kingly book contained this gem--
+
+    Confusion huddles all into one scene,
+    Like Noah’s arks, the clean and the unclean,
+    For now, alas! the drink has credit got,
+    And he’s no gentleman who drinks it not.
+
+Millingen in his “Curiosities of Medical Experiences,” 1837, said
+that coffee in excess produced “feverish heat and a predisposition to
+apoplexy.” But he did commend coffee and tea as beverages affording
+stimulus without producing intoxication. Francis Bacon declared that
+“coffee comforteth the heart and helpeth digestion” while Bach, to
+offset this, wrote his Cantata No. 211 of the “Secular Cantatas” to
+protest its use.
+
+In 1792 Dr. Benjamin Moseley said doubt existed as to whether coffee
+was a tonic or a sedative, but believed that it had intrinsic food
+value. Every now and then individuals arise to denounce or to praise
+an article of diet or a diet system and to declare that all men
+should hear and follow because this idea was of benefit to them.
+Such statements can have no standing in science, even when made by
+a doctor and based upon his actual experiences with a few patients.
+The only possible way to find out whether coffee, say, is beneficial,
+or the reverse is to investigate the literature and try to poll the
+authorities each one of whom has examined large numbers of individual
+cases to see if any general statements can be hazarded. Even then we
+cannot make final conclusions but we can assay general trends.
+
+Is coffee harmful then? What do physiologists, pharmacologists and
+medical men say? Coffee demonstrably enlivens the intellect, removes
+the sensation of fatigue and makes the subject feel more comfortable.
+These are gifts not to be sniffed out of court. But is coffee safe
+and harmless enough that we may dare indulge ourselves in this
+pleasant reaction in a world where the pleasant is so readily assumed
+to be _per se_ the invidious--and so often is actually so? The
+question is in dispute like most questions considered settled by many
+people. There is no more reason to conclude one way than the other
+in so far as average adults are concerned. All who say dogmatically
+“No coffee--it is very harmful” are as wrong as all who state the
+opposite of this.
+
+In his “Personal and Community Health” C. E. Turner says coffee is
+not harmful to most adults in reasonable quantities. G. N. Stewart’s
+“Physiology” remarks that tea and coffee are safe stimulants because
+they have no bad after effects. Stewart also cautions against their
+abuse, but it may as well be stated at once that the question of
+abuse introduces an altogether new factor. Water and salt are
+absolutely necessary to life but the abuse of either is injurious.
+We can produce true water intoxications and salt eaten to excess can
+do us much harm. All articles of diet from parsnips and lamb chops
+to caffeine and alcohol can harm if abused and we should assume when
+speaking of them a sane, rational use and regard abuse as a harmful
+condition of a different order altogether.
+
+As C. E. A. Winslow well says in his “Healthy Living”--“The fact
+that tea and coffee sometimes become tyrants does not mean that such
+drinks are necessarily bad.”
+
+In one thing medical authorities do agree, however, coffee and
+tea are not beverages for children. Moralists to the contrary
+notwithstanding, this is again beside the point when we are
+considering the reasonable use of coffee by adults. Adults and
+children are essentially different animals using their food intake
+differently--the one for upkeep and repair the other for new
+construction as well as upkeep and repair. They differ basically
+in metabolism. They have different metabolic rates and different
+expenditures of energy. The child is turning food into flesh and bone
+and blood at a much greater rate than a fully-grown adult organism
+is ever required to do. Diets which would amply sustain an adult may
+easily be detrimental to or deficient for young and growing children.
+We shall, then, restrict ourselves herein to the rational use of
+coffee by average adults. What can coffee, or its active principle
+caffeine, do to harm adults?
+
+Caffeine definitely increases the force of the heart beat. Yet Wood,
+“Notice of Judgment Under the Food and Drugs Act No. 1455 1912,” says
+such an effect may be desirable since a slower rate and increased
+force induce cardiac efficiency. Heavy coffee drinking may produce a
+frequent, hard pulse and palpitations, but this again goes over into
+the territory of abuse.
+
+Coffee tends both to dilate the vascular system and to constrict it,
+the net result being a mass movement of the blood without increased
+blood pressure. Coffee has repeatedly been suspected of damage to the
+heart and blood vessels but such suspicions are common in therapy
+and evidence is entirely lacking to prove this point scientifically.
+Suspicion is here probably no more legitimate than in many lay
+superstitions. While patients with definite heart trouble should
+avoid all stimulants the normal use of coffee by an adult cannot be
+said to have an insidious effect upon the heart and blood vessels.
+
+While coffee is a diuretic it cannot be convicted of renal injury as
+yet. Indeed it is quite probable that the kidneys become accustomed
+to caffeine while A. R. Cushny (J. Pharmacol. & Experimental Therapy
+4 363) declares that caffeine does not injure the kidneys even when
+given in large dosage over long periods.
+
+But how about digestion? Years ago Fraser (J. of Anatomy & Physiology
+184 13 1883) said that coffee and tea hindered the digestion of
+protein foodstuffs with the exception of ham and eggs! This very
+fortunate immunity renders the typical American dish a safe breakfast
+in any case. In general, however, observations _in vivo_ indicate
+that the amounts of the beverage usually taken have no evil effects
+upon digestion. Indeed some investigators have found a pronounced
+increase in gastric secretion following tea and coffee.
+
+Hutchinson in his “Food and Dietetics” says that the digestive
+disturbance caused by such infused beverages is negligible in health.
+Others have held that the aromatic constituents of coffee, or the
+“empyreumatic oil,” upset digestion. There may be some reason for
+this; at least certain individuals tolerate much better coffee from
+which these substances have been removed.
+
+Caffeine is of course a stimulant to the central nervous system,
+particularly that part of it intimately associated with the gastric
+function. How far is its use as such a cerebral stimulant advisable?
+Like all stimulants this will result in greater fatigue on excessive
+usage. But as “The Medical Review of Reviews” once said, “When tea
+and coffee are made moderate in strength and partaken of in sober
+quantities they are gentle stimulants and their effect upon the
+nervous system is salutary.” A too constant reliance on coffee as a
+goad may of course result in nervous irritability.
+
+Coffee speeds up the metabolism, increases the body heat and heat
+elimination, and perhaps urges us on to greater activity. But, as the
+English pharmacologist Dixon remarks in his “Manual of Pharmacology,”
+“Caffeine decidedly facilitates the performance of all forms of
+physical work.” Yet certain athletes are reported to have had their
+performances injured by coffee drinking, while Osborn holds that
+coffee interferes with the best muscular efforts. Take Hobson’s
+choice here, you have an authority either way and we do love some one
+to give our opinions an affidavit. It may be observed that coffee
+also increases the rate and depth of our respiration.
+
+The following gracefully and euphoniously named aromatics have been
+found in roasted coffee--pyrol, quinol, methylamin, acetone, furfuryl
+alcohol, a derivative of saligenin, phenols, valeric acid, pyridin
+and trimethylamin. You are no doubt much surprised and edified to
+know that. Some of these compounds are toxic, but they occur in
+coffee in amounts far too small to be dangerous to health. Some have
+accused these formidably named derivatives of bad effects but the
+work existing shows caffeine to be the only coffee constituent of
+importance in its physiological effects. It is agreed that caffeine
+is very rapidly changed by the body into less active substances and
+disposed of, so there can be no cumulative effect even of that. In
+old age, as in youth, coffee, like other stimulants, should be used
+in moderation if at all.
+
+As a whole then what can we conclude about the use of coffee by
+adults? Science has not found it harmful when taken in non-excessive
+amounts. Heart patients, neurotics, the young and the aged should
+avoid it. It has not been proven to cause pathological changes in the
+heart, blood vessels or kidneys. It is a valuable cerebral stimulant
+and antidote for mental fatigue, lacking as it does the bad effects
+of most stimulants. It also stimulates respiration and speeds up
+the metabolism, while its effects on digestion cannot be said to
+be definitely deleterious. Tea, because of its tannin content, is
+probably worse than coffee gastrically. Finally caffeine is rapidly
+oxidized and has no cumulative poisonous effect.
+
+Most important of all we must remember that individuals differ.
+They are constructed of different proteins and have cellular and
+glandular processes differing from individual to individual. What one
+can do with impunity another will find bringing him nearer to the
+undertaker daily. In this as in all other matters dietetic common
+sense and sound judgment in appraising our own state of health and
+the reactions of our organism to various stimuli will always surpass
+slavish subservience to systems or morbid efforts to avoid all harm
+and achieve an impossible all good.
+
+Then if we are to drink coffee let us consider momentarily how best
+to make it. One basic fact stands out--freshly ground coffee is best.
+Ground coffee loses its flavor on standing. It also loses its content
+of carbon dioxide. These two factors are definitely related but
+exactly how and why we do not know.
+
+In considering coffee-making precise scientific methods are
+everything. Our mothers, more energetic than the decadent women of
+today, made their own bread. They often appraised various flours by
+such rude methods and declared this brand better than that. How much
+could they have known about it? Did they keep every factor constant
+except the flour when making their tests? You know they did not.
+
+Go into the laboratory in the U. S. Bureau of Chemistry, where flour
+bought by the government is tested, and what do you see? You see an
+apparatus enabling the investigator to make bread from that flour
+holding every factor constant except the flour. All other materials
+used are precisely the same and all materials are carefully weighed.
+The dough is kneaded mechanically and timed exactly. Fermentation
+takes place in a cabinet at a constant temperature and for a definite
+time for all loaves. The same holds for the time and temperature
+of baking. The loaves are cooled just alike on wire meshes for
+the same time. They are weighed and their volumes measured. Then
+the investigator positively knows which flour makes the best loaf
+of bread and the government buys that flour for its hospitals and
+penitentiaries.
+
+It is exactly the same with coffee. To test coffees they must be
+infused in very precise ways. How is it done? In the first place
+pulverized coffee must pass a 30 mesh sieve and be like fine
+cornmeal, medium ground coffee must pass a 10 mesh sieve and be like
+steel cut; coarsely ground coffee must pass an 8 mesh sieve and
+appear like the rude, home ground bean of our childhood.
+
+Then boiling, boiling with egg, percolation and filtration must be
+tried on each by precise methods. A 40c. Mocha-Java coffee may be
+used with 12 grams of coffee and 240 cc. of water, except in the case
+of percolation which requires 480 cubic centimeters of water for
+12 grams of coffee. In boiling with egg 10 grams of egg white were
+added. The infusion must be governed precisely.
+
+Boiling takes place in a seamless white enamel pot, cold water being
+poured over the coffee, the whole brought to a boil and boiling
+continued for three minutes; the infusion then stood five minutes
+and was ready. It was strained through cheese cloth. Percolation was
+carried out in the usual manner with an ordinary percolator, the
+water being cold at the start and boiling being continued for five
+minutes. In filtration a wire strainer was put across the top of the
+pot covered with a piece of tennis flannel upon which the coffee lay.
+Boiling water was poured through once.
+
+The brews were tested hot, for strength, color, and flavor by various
+people who did not know the methods of preparation. Six degrees of
+strength were observed with specific gravities of the brew by test as
+shown in the table--
+
+    Very weak                 1.0045 Specific Gravity
+    Weak                      1.0055 Specific Gravity
+    Moderately strong         1.0060 Specific Gravity
+    Standard                  1.0065 Specific Gravity
+    A little too strong       1.0070 Specific Gravity
+    Much too strong           1.0080 Specific Gravity
+
+The specific gravity was taken on the cold brew and a standard,
+1.0065 was selected for further tests. The following table indicating
+condition of coffee, method of brew, weight of coffee used and cost
+per cup is of considerable interest--
+
+                                  S. G. 1.0065        Cost
+    Condition       Method       Weight Coffee     per cup
+                  of infusion        Grams           cents
+
+    Pulverized    Boiling            12.05             .63
+    Pulverized    Percolated         12.78             .71
+    Pulverized    Boiled with egg    12.85            1.05
+    Pulverized    Filtered           12.31             .72
+    Medium        Boiling            15.89             .83
+    Medium        Percolated         22.94            1.29
+    Medium        Boiled with egg    16.71            1.29
+    Medium        Filtered           30.00            1.73
+    Coarse        Boiling            19.79            1.03
+    Coarse        Percolated         27.52            1.54
+    Coarse        Boiled with egg    21.27            1.56
+
+Hence it is apparent that pulverizing is the most efficient method of
+grinding. The best brew is made by filtration. Boiling with egg is
+second best while plain boiling and percolation are the poorest of
+all. In general, strength and color of the brew are quite independent
+of the blend and price but depend upon the grind. The flavor,
+however, varies markedly with the coffee brand and price. Java,
+Sumatra and Bogota give weaker infusions under the same conditions
+than do Mocha and Santos. The order of preference for flavor
+stood--Java, Sumatra, Santos, Bogota and Mocha. It was also observed
+that coffee which had stood long after grinding gave an infusion of a
+lower specific gravity and hence of impaired strength.
+
+The effect of adding sugar and cream to coffee is not well
+understood. Some assert that the fat of cream and the fats of the
+coffee bean form indigestible compounds, but there is scarcely
+sufficient experimental evidence to justify this. The tannin
+compounds in coffee are apparently not precipitated, as has
+frequently been stated, by the addition of sugar and cream. Testing a
+centrifuged cream from a beverage coffee gave no appreciable evidence
+of tannin while the remaining coffee infusion gave the normal
+positive tests for tannin. It is certainly true, however, according
+to one authority that black coffee without any additional substances,
+with the possible exception of a portion of sugar, is the most
+beneficial form of the beverage.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
+this_; those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.
+Obvious printing errors, such as partially printed letters and
+punctuation, were corrected. Three misspelled words were corrected.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75599 ***