All About Coffee by William H. Ukers (best new books to read .TXT) π
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF COFFEE PROPAGATION
A brief account of the cultivation of the coffee plant in the Old World, and of its introduction into the New--A romantic coffee adventure Page 5
CHAPTER III
EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING
Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries--Stories of its origin--Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church--Its spread through Arabia, Persia, and Turkey--Persecutions and Intolerances--Early coffee manners and customs Page 11
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO WESTERN EUROPE
When the three great temperance beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee, came to Europe--Coffee first mentioned by Rauwolf in 1582--Early days of coffee in Italy--How Pope Clement VIII baptized it and made it a truly Christian beverage--The first Europe
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In general, a moderate amount of coffee stimulates appetite, improves digestion and relieves the sense of plenitude in the stomach. It increases intestinal peristalsis, acts as a mild laxative, and slightly stimulates secretion of bile. Excessive use, however, profoundly disturbs digestive function, and promotes constipation and hemorrhoids.[225] There is much evidence to support the view that "neither tea, coffee, nor chicory in dilute solutions has any deleterious action on the digestive ferments, although in strong solutions such an action may be manifest."[226] After conducting exhaustive experiments with various types of coffee, Lehmann[227] concluded that ordinary coffee is without effect on the digestion of the majority of sound persons, and may be used with impunity.
Coffee in the DietaryβFood Value
There are three things to be considered in deciding upon the inclusion of a substance in the dietaryβpalatability, digestibility without toxicity or disarrangement, and calorific value. Coffee is as satisfactory from these viewpoints as any other food product.
The palatability of a well-made cup of good coffee needs no eulogizing; it speaks for itself. It adds enormously to the attractiveness of the meal, and to our ability to eat with relish and appetite large amounts of solid foods, without a subsequent uncomfortable feeling. Wiley[228] says that the feeling of drowsiness after a full meal is a natural condition incidental to the proper conduct of digestion, and that to drive away this natural feeling with coffee must be an interference with the normal condition. However, if by so doing, we can increase our over-all efficiency without material harm to our digestive organs (and we can and do), the procedure has much in its favor both psychologically and dietetically.
The fact that coffee favors digestion without eventual disarrangement has been demonstrated above. On the subject of the relative agreement with the constitution of foods of daily consumption, Dr. English[229] said:
It is well known that there is no species of diet which invariably suits all constitutions, nor will that which is palatable and salutary at one time be equally palatable and salutary at another time to the same individual. I think the most natural food provided for us is milk; yet I will engage to show twenty instances where milk disagrees more than coffee.
Further in this regard, Hutchinson[230] considers that ninety percent of the "dyspepsias" attributed to coffee are due to malnutrition, or to food simultaneously ingested, no disease known to the medical profession being directly attributable to it.
No one cognizant of the facts will contend that a cup of black coffee has any direct food value; but not so with the roasted bean. This has quite an appreciable content of protein and fat, both substances of high calorific value. The inhabitants of the Island of Groix eat the whole roasted coffee bean in considerable quantity, and seem to obtain considerable nourishment therefrom. Also, the Galla, a wandering tribe of Africa, make large use of food balls, about the size of billiard balls, consisting of pulverized coffee held in shape with fat. One ball is said to contain a day's ration; and, because of its food content and stimulating power, serves to sustain them on long marches of days' duration.
When an infusion, or decoction, of roasted coffee is made, about 1.25 percent of the extracted matter is protein, it being accompanied by traces of dextrin and sugar. The same dearth of extraction of food materials occurs upon infusing coffee substitutes. This small amount can have but little dietetic significance. However, upon addition of sugar and of milk or cream, with their content of protein, fat, and lactose, the calorific value of the cup of coffee rises. Lusk and Gephart[231] give the food value of an ordinary restaurant cup of coffee as 195.5 calories, and Locke[232] gives it as 156.
Mattei[233] found that 8 cc. of an infusion of roasted Mocha coffee of five-percent strength suppressed incipient polyneuritis in pigeons within a few hours' time. Their weight did not improve, but otherwise they were completely restored to health. However, in from four to six weeks after the apparent cure, the symptoms rapidly returned and the pigeons perished, with symptoms of paralysis and cerebral complications. The temporary cure was probably due to caffein stimulation and secondary actions of the volatile constituents of coffee, which may be related to the vitamines; for it is not likely that the vitamines would withstand the heat of roasting. If B-vitamine does occur in roasted coffee, it is present only in traces.[234]
The inclusion of coffee in the average dietary is warranted because of its evident worth as an aid to digestion and for its assimilating power, thus earning its characterization as an "adjuvant food."
Action of Coffee on Bacteria
The employment of coffee as an aid to sanitation has been but little considered. Coffee, when freshly roasted and ground, is deodorant, antiseptic, and germicidal, probably due to the empyreumatic products developed during the process of roasting. An infusion of 0.5 percent inhibits the growth of many pathogenic organisms, and those of 10 percent kill anthrax bacteria in three hours, cholera spirilla in four hours, and many other bacteria, including those producing typhoid, in two to six days.[235]
The maintenance of a low rate of contraction of typhoid fever has often been attributed to drinking of coffee instead of water, the action of the coffee being partly due to the bactericidal effect of the caffeol and partly to the boiling of the water before infusion. The stimulating tendency of the caffein to sustain and to "tide over" those of low vitalities is also evidenced.
Use of Coffee in Medicine
Coffee has been employed in medicinal practise as a direct specific, as a preventive, and as an antidote. The United States Dispensatory[236] summarizes the uses of caffein and coffee as follows:
Caffein is a valuable remedy in practical medicine as a cerebral and cardiac stimulant and as a diuretic. In undue somnolence, in nervous headache, in narcotism, also, at times when the exigencies of life require excessively prolonged wakefulness, caffein may be used as the most powerful agent known for producing wakefulness. In a series of experiments, J. Hughes Bennett found that within narrow limits there is a direct physiological antagonism between caffein and morphine. Coffee and caffein in narcotic poisoning are of value as a means of keeping the patient awake, and of stimulating the respiratory centres.
As a cardiac stimulant, caffein may be used in any form of heart failure; the indications for its use are those which call for the employment of digitalis. It is superior to digitalis in never disagreeing with the stomach, in having no distinctive cumulative tendency, and in the promptness of its action. It is pronouncedly inferior to digitalis in the power and certainty of its action, and in the permanence of its influence once asserted. As a diuretic it is superior; it is very valuable in the treatment of cardiac dropsies, and is often useful in chronic Bright's disease when there is no irritation of the kidneys.
On account of its tendency to produce wakefulness, it is usually better to mass the doses early in the day, at least six hours being left between the last dose and the ordinary time for sleep. From eight to fifteen grams (of caffein) may be given in the course of a day in severe cases. If tried, it would probably prove a useful drug in cases of sudden collapse from various causes.
Good effects of coffee are recounted by Thompson.[237]
It removes the sensation of fatigue in the muscles, and increases their functional activity; it allays hunger to a limited extent; it strengthens the heart action; it acts as a diuretic, and increases the excretion of urea; it has a mildly sudorific influence; it counteracts nervous exhaustion and stimulates nerve centers. It is used sometimes as a nervine in cases of migraine, and there are many persons who can sustain prolonged mental fatigue and strain from anxiety and worry much better by the use of strong black coffee. In low delirium, or when the nervous system is overcome by the use of narcotics or by excessive hemorrhage, strong black coffee is serviceable to keep the patient from falling into the drowsiness which soon merges into coma. In such cases as much as half a pint of strong black coffee may be injected into the rectum.
Strong coffee with a little lemon juice or brandy is often useful in overcoming a malarial chill or a paroxysm of asthma. It is a useful temporary cardiac stimulant for children suffering collapse.
Dr. Restrepo,[238] of Medellin, Colombia, claims to have cured many cases of chronic malaria and related diseases with infusion of green coffee, after quinine had failed. Wallace[239] states that tincture of green coffee is a natural and efficacious specific for cholera, and that she knows of more than a thousand eases of cholera and diarrhea which have been treated with it without an isolated case of failure. Landanabileo has been quoted as using raw coffee infusion in hepatic and nephritic diseases, venal and hepatic colics, and in diabetes.
In the Civil War, surgeons utilized coffee in allaying malarial fever and other maladies with which they had to contend, often under the most trying conditions, and with severely limited means of combating disease.[240] Its effect is to counteract the depressant action of low and miasmatic atmospheres, opening the secretions which they have checked. Travelers from the colder climes soon find that the fragrant cup of coffee is a corrective to derangements of the liver resulting from climatic conditions.[241]
Dr. Guillasse, of the French Navy, in a paper on typhoid fever, says:
Coffee has given us unhoped for satisfaction, and after having dispensed it we find, to our great surprise, that its action is as prompt as it is decisive. No sooner have our patients taken a few tablespoonfuls of it, than their features become relaxed and they come to their senses. The next day the improvement is such that we are tempted to look upon coffee as a specific against typhoid fever. Under its influence the stupor is dispelled, and the patient arouses from the state of somnolency in which he has been since the invasion of the disease. Soon all the functions take their natural course, and he enters upon convalescence.[242]
Also it has been reported that in extreme cases of yellow fever, coffee has been used most effectively by many physicians as the main reliance after all other well known remedies have been administered and failed.
According to Lorand,[243] the use of coffee in gout is strictly prohibited by Umber and Schittenhelm; but he considered it a mistake absolutely to forbid coffee, as, when a person has good kidneys, the small amount of uric acid furnished by the caffein can readily be eliminated. A curious remedy for gout and rheumatism, the efficacy of which the writer scouts, is said to be[244]βa pint of hot, strong, black coffee, which must be perfectly pure, and seasoned with a teaspoonful of pure black pepper, thoroughly mixed
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