The Home

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 6, 8 February 1906, Page 29

The Home

By 'Maureen'

Tea-Drinking. A London medical practitioner of thirty years' standing— Mr. J. H. daikc— has been making some sweeping assertions on the subject ot tea-drinking. He solves the problem why so many people have such an appetite tor tea when they have a distaste for any other meal as follows :— The sinking, empty feeling, accompanied often by irritability, low spirits, and shortness of temper, means that the stimulating effect of the last dose of tea i.s passing off and the stage of reaction setting in. It is just the same with the teadrinker as it is with the alcohol-drinker ; when tho effect of the last dram is passing off, another must be. taken to keep up the stimulating effect. Thus the vicious circle is kept up. And what is the effect of it I The effect is an increased wear and tear on the nervous system. Tea belongs to the group of nerve stimulants, of which cofiee and cocoa are also members that) enable a person to get more out of himself in the shape of mental or bodily energy than he would bo able to get without them. This is drawing a bill on the bank of his nervous system, of course, and the bill will ha\c to be met. If the emergency is a passing one the bill will be met by food and rest, and no great harm will be done. But this is not the usual case and when once a habit is established an abnormal rate of wear and tear will go on, and this results in a fruitful crup of cases of that Tatter-day fashionable complaint, neurasthenia. Tea is the parent of much neurasthenia. Allied to neui asthenia, and nearly always associated with it, is dyspepsia of the nervoais or flatulent type. Tea can pioduce any one of these and all combined. Another effect of tea is to produce anaemia. Tea contains not only theme— the active principle which has the stimulating action on the nerves— but also much tannin. It is owing to this latter that much of its indigestion-causing properties are due. Tea turns meat into leather. The cheaper teas so much in use now— those which give people 'the most tor their money' —contain the most tannin. A tea taster informs' me that if the infusion of these teas is left in the tasting cups for any time, it will eat off the enamel. From which it is easy to understand the effect tho infusion produces on the human stomach. It would almost seem that the human animal is •determined to assert his superiority over all the rest of creation by the ingenuity he displays in discovering or manufacturing pleasant poisons for himself. The great majority of mankind are the slaves to one or more poison habits. Of these habits, the tea habit is one of the most subtle insinuating, and injurious. The Heroism of a Smile. Once there was a woman who worked as hard to seem gay, as her husband worked hard to keep the little home together. Some of her efforts were unsuccessful, and there seemed nothing to smile about, and no one to smile back at • her. But she kept up her courage,, and started to search for something that might aid her. One (J,ay she found an advertisement in a magazine, the picture of a small boy laughing broadly. It was a funny sketch, and she pinned it up near her bed so that the first thing in the morning she could smile back at the smiling boy, and remember that through the day it should be her talisman. Then out of periodicals and newspapers she made a collection of pictures all of smiling and laughing faces, and placed them around her tiny home to inspire and help her in her quest of cheerfulness. Her husband finally caught the infection, and with it a more hopeful view of life. His wife insists that from deliberately looking cheerful she has learned to feel cheerful, and that no one has anyi right to inflict a woebegone ' face on the public at large, and particularly on those near and dear to her.