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Title: The truth about the tobacco habit
Author: T. Swann Harding
Release date: March 12, 2025 [eBook #75599]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1929
Credits: Carol Brown, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TOBACCO HABIT ***
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.
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