[Sidenote: Tea and coffee.]
A great deal too much against tea[24] is said by wise people, and a
great deal too much of tea is given to the sick by foolish people. When
you see the natural and almost universal craving in English sick for
their "tea," you cannot but feel that nature knows what she is about.
But a little tea or coffee restores them quite as much as a great deal,
and a great deal of tea and especially of coffee impairs the little
power of digestion they have. Yet a nurse because she sees how one or
two cups of tea or coffee restores her patient, thinks that three or
four cups will do twice as much. This is not the case at all; it is
however certain that there is nothing yet discovered which is a
substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea; he can take it
when he can take nothing else, and he often can't take anything else if
he has it not. I should be very glad if any of the abusers of tea would
point out what to give to an English patient after a sleepless night,
instead of tea. If you give it at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning, he may
even sometimes fall asleep after it, and get perhaps his only two or
three hours' sleep during the twenty-four.
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