MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS.
Nutritive, Properties of Coffee.—M. Gasparin stated, a short time
ago, before the Academy of Sciences of Paris, that the journeymen
miners in the neighborhood of Charleroi preserve robust health and
great muscular strength by using an article of food containing but half
the nutritive principles which are found in the usual nourishment used
in the rest of Europe among people occupied in the same manner. The
difference lies principally in the large quantities of coffee which the
Charleroi miners consume. The journeyman, before going to his
work in the morning, takes half a pint of coffee (half chicory and half
coffee) and a good slice of bread-and-butter. He carries with him into
the mine another pint of coffee and a few rounds of bread-and-butter;
and after returning home in the evening, he sups upon potatoes and
cabbage, or some other green vegetable, and concludes his meal with a
repetition of coffee and bread-and-butter. The consumption per diem
consists in about two pounds of bread, two ounces of butter, one ounce
of coffee, and another of chicory, and a pound and a half of cooked
vegetables. Meat is eaten on Sundays and holidays only, and the miner
drinks no fermented liquors during the week, his only beverage being
his coffee. On Sundays, however, he takes a couple of quarts of beer.
Thus it is calculated that such a laborer consumes only about four
drachms of nitrogen per diem, whilst in other places about double the
quantity is required. It would appear from Boecker’s investigations,
(see The Lancet, vol. i. 1850, p. 119,) that the amount of urea ejected
in the twenty-four hours is diminished to one-half by the use of coffee.
This substance would, then, seem to prevent the loss of nitrogen, and
thus its nutritive effects might be explained. The garlic-bulbs, so much
used in the south of France, seem to act in a similar manner. It has,
on the other hand, been ascertained by M. Barral, that common salt
increases the proportion of urea and uric acid, so that more substantial
nourishment is required by those who use table salt. Government
might very judiciously, therefore, favor the use of coffee among the
humbler classes, and free it from all duty. It would be interesting to
institute a few inquiries regarding the effects produced in this country
by the use of tea.—Ibid.