A French novelist Honoré de Balzac. The portrait of L. Boulanger.
Coffee and creation
With admiration wrote about coffee Balzac in «Treatise about modern analeptics»:
«As soon as coffee gets stomach, at once appears excitement. Thoughts start moving like Great Army’s battalions on the battlefield. Instantly in a memory arise events quasi adapt with a wind.»
Coffee like a medicine
In Europe at first coffee beans were considered like a remedy, and they rapidly have been moved from botanist’s study to drugstores. In XVII century in medicaments` assortment of doctors, homoeopathists, chemists and even obstetricians, they took honorary place.
Coffee was considered like a medicine not only because of its high cost, but rather of its pronounced specific taste. Sometimes it was even called as bitter black liqueur. (Samuel Hahnemann homoeopathy’s founder, stuck to hard and fast rule: «Coffee – is definitely medical substance. However no one remedy has more healthy taste than strong coffee without sugar. Even from the first time it seems everyone very pleasant»).
The doctrine of vital juices, which was developed by Galen (131—200), adherent of herbage therapy, has dominated in medieval Europe and also in Moslem countries. According to his theory, the physical state of any person is determined by means of four liquids: yellow and black bile, phlegm and blood. By disturbance of their correlation in organism appears disease. In its turn, each of vital juices is connected with two physical properties: warm (cold) and moisture (dryness). It was considered that these qualities have food, drink and medicines; just they were used for restorer of equilibrium of vitally important liquids.
Concerning medicinal properties doctors did not have consensus of opinion. Some of them were sure that it is dry and cold, other believed – dry but hot. It was such opinion that qualities of husk are different. The disunity in the ranks of physicians becomes obvious, if examine the list of diseases where coffee was prescribed.
In one of the brochures, written in 1663 and ridiculed doctors at the time, were some examples of people (and their places of residence), who recovered from the ailments (using coffee), when they were refused by doctors. Among them, Benjamin Bedkock who drank coffee in Leiden, and his wife, who was barren for four years. A nine months later after she denied from coffee, she bore excellent baby. «Anna Marina Rotterdam … was suffered from the tumor on her upper lip … and the deeper it was cut out, the longer it grew. As soon as she started to drink coffee, tumor turned back and began to grow inside the mouth».
One of the French doctor in collaboration with his colleagues, have determined that coffee together with others therapeutic effects can counteract drunkenness and subdue sickness, as well as relieve urination and treat dropsy, pox and gout. According to French encyclopaedia «Larousse», coffee is especially useful for writers, soldiers, sailors and workers, who are working in hot shops. For a wonder it is also useful for countries where cretinism is widespread.
Coffee like stimulator
Some consequences of caffeine’s effect cannot fail to be seen. One of the recognized medicine authorities gives following description: “Waking up, I feel languor and absence of some thoughts, like an oyster. However after drinking coffee, my memory becomes more sensitive, and I feel talkativeness, quickness and thirst for activity. We should drink coffee observing moderation and caution”.
A favourable report about coffee drink gave doctor Tornton: «A cup of strong coffee strengthens our mental and physical faculties. There aren’t any efficient remedies both for scientists and for workers».
As a result, useful substances from coffee beans are received human skin.
The record of coffee wholesome influence on mental and creative work can be found in proceedings of great writers. Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Charles Pierre Baudelaire, Jean-Baptiste Moliere, François Voltaire were coffee admirers. In response to the fact that coffee isn’t a powerful but poison, Moliere and Voltaire, as one, answered that they have been drinking coffee during fifty years, and even if it had been quite weak, they would died long ago.
However doctors mentioned some negative consequences of coffee passion. (Hahnemann described so-called «coffee disease», which becomes apparent in the form of indisposition, collapse and special paralysis. Among others undesirable symptom were melancholy, haemorrhoids, headaches and diminished sexual libido (hypoactive desire).
It was an opinion that coffee had a bad influence on little children. Nursing mothers also should not drink it. It was considered that it ruins teeth and develops rickets.
The author of many medical treatises, a famous Italian doctor Sinibaldi, was a coffee opponent. He confirmed: „The commerce, which is developed between Asia and the New World, lead to smallpox development. What is more important, it introduced us a new beverage, which has destructive effect… It leads to intellectual defect, change of digestive juices, indigestion, convulsions, toe paralysis and giddiness. “
The disputes about the pros and cons of coffee have been continued for many years. With varying degrees doctors considered it sometimes a medicine, sometime a poison for the mind and body. They do not reach a consensus at present time.
Coffee and healthy skin.
In Japan, where during a thousand years traditional drink was green tea, coffee was spread very slowly. It was imported there not earlier then XIX century, and even nowadays its popularity is not wide.
However just in this country coffee has found unusual use. Japanese believe that coffee contains substances which are useful for skin recovery.
Health Benefits From Coffee
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Tags: caffeine, coffee bean, health, liqueur
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