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102 ANNUAL REGISTER
Where this has been the case, the subjects were for the moft part healthy, strong, active, and temperate, both of one fex and the other. Among the less hardy and robust, we find complaints which are ascribed to tea by the parties themselves. Some complain that, after a tea-breakfast, they find themselves rather fluttered, their hands less steady in writing, or any other employ that requires an exact command. This probably soon goes off, and they feel no other effect from it. Others again bear it well in the morning, but, from drinking it in the afternoon, find themselves very easily agitated and affected with a kind of involuntary trembling.
There are many who cannot bear to drink a single dish of tea without being immediately sick and disordered at the stomach. To some it gives great pain about that part, very excruciating, and attended with general tremors. But in general the most tender and delicate constitutions are most affected by the free use of tea, being frequently attacked with pains in the stomach and bowels, spafmodick affections attended with pale limpid urine in large quantities, great agitation of spirits, and a proneness to be disconcerted with the least noise, hurry, or disturbance. 
There is one circumstance, however, that render it more difficult to investigate the certain effects of tea; which is, the great unwillingness that most people shew to giving us a genuine account of their uneasy sensations after the free use of it, from a consciousness that it would be extremely imprudent to continue its use after they are convinced from experience that it is injurious.
That it produces watchfulness in some constitutions is most certain, when drank at evening in considerable quantities. Whether warm water would not sometimes do the fame, or any other aqueous liquor, is not so certain. 
That it enlivens, refreshes, exhilarates, is likewise well known. From all which circumstances it would seem, that tea contains an active penetrating principle, speedily exciting the action of the nerves; in very irritable constitutions, to such a degree as to give very easy sensations, and bring on spasmodick affections; in less irritable constitutions, it rather gives pleasure and immediate satisfaction, though not without occasionally producing some tendency to tremors and agitation bordering upon pain.
The finer the tea, the more obvious are these effects. It is perhaps, for this, amongst other reasons, that the lower classes of people, who can only procure the most common, are in general the least sufferers. I say, in general, because even amongst them there are many who actually suffer much by it: they drink it as long as it yields any taste, and for the most part hot, to add to its flavour; and what the finer kinds of tea effect in their superiors, the quantity, and the degree of heat in which it is drank, produce in them.
It ought not, however, to pass unobserved, that, in a multitude of cases, the infusions of our own herbs, sage for instance, mint, beaum, even rosemary, and valerian itself, will now and then produce similar effects, and leave that emptiness, agitation of spirits, flatulence, spasmodick pains, and other

For the YEAR 1772. 103
other symptoms that are met with in people, the most of all others devoted to tea.
In treating of this subject, I would not be understood to be either a partial advocate, or a passionate accuser. I have often regretted, that tea should be found to posses any pernicious qualities, as the pleasure which arises from reflecting how many millions of our fellow-creatures are enjoying at one hour the same amusing repast, the occasions it furnishes for agreeable conversation, the innocent parties of both sexes it daily draws together, and entertains without the aid of spiritous liquors, would afford the most grateful sensations to a social breast. But justice demands something more. It stands charged, by many able writers, by public opinion, partly derived from experience, with being the cause of many grievous disorders. All that train of distempers, included under the name of nervous, are said to be, if not the offspring, at least highly aggravated by the use of tea. To enumerate all these would be to transcribe volumes. It is not impossible but the charges may be partly true. Let us examine the case with all possible candour.
The effect of drinking large quantities of any warm aqueous liquor, according to all the experiments we are acquainted with, would be to enter speedily into the course of circulation, and pass off as speedily by urine or perspiration, or the increase of some of the secretions. Its effects on the slid parts of the constitution would be relaxing, and thereby enfeebling. If this warm aqueous fluid were taken in considerable quantities, its effects would be proportionable, and still greater, if it were substituted instead of nutriment.
That all infusions of herbs may be considered in this light seems not unreasonable. The infusion of tea, nevertheless, has these two peculiarities. It is not only possessed of a sedative quality, but also of a considerable astringency; by which the relaxing power, ascribed to a mere aqueous fluid, is in some measure corrected. It is, on account of the latter, perhaps less injurious than many other infusions of herbs, which, besides a very slight aromatic flavour, have very little if any stypticity, to prevent their relaxing, debilitating effects.
So far therefore tea, if not too fine, if not drank too hot, nor in too great quantities, is perhaps preferable to any other vegetable infusion we know. And, if we take into consideration likewise its known enlivening energy, it will appear that our attachment to tea is not merely from its being costly or fashionable, but from its superiority in taste and effects to most other vegetables.
I shall finish these remarks with some reflections on this herb, considered in another light.
As luxury of every kind has augmented in proportion to the increase of foreign superfluities, it has contributed more or less its share towards the production of those low nervous diseases which are now so frequent. Amongst these causes, excess in spirituous liquors is one of the most considerable; but the first rise of this pernicious custom is often owing to the weakness and debility of the system brought on by the daily habit of drinking tea: the trembling hand feels a temporary
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