Waving, however, any attempts to fix with precision the effects of Tea from these experiments alone, let us endeavour to collect from observation likewise, such facts as may enable us to judge what its effects are on the human frame, and from thence draw the clearest inferences we can, how far it is salutary or otherwise.
The long and constant use of Tea, as a part of our diet, makes us forget to enquire whether it is possessed of any medicinal properties. We shall endeavour to consider it in both respects.
The generality of healthy persons find themselves not apparently affected by the use of Tea: it seems to them a grateful refreshment, both fitting them for labour and refreshing them after it. There are instances of persons who have drank it from their infancy, to old age; have led, at the same time, active, if not laborious lives; and yet never felt any ill effects from the constant use of it.
Where this has been the case, the subjects of both sexes were for the most part healthy, strong, active, and temperate. Amongst 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 ratherfluttered; their hands less steady in writing, or any other employment that requires an exact command of spirits. This probably soon goes off, and they feel no other injury 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 people who cannot bear to drink a single dish of Tea, without being immediately sick and disordered at the stomach: To some it gives excruciating pain about that part, attended with general tremours. 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; spasmodic affections; attended with a copious discharge of limpid urine, and great agitation of spirits on the least noise, hurry, or disturbance.