"Amongst the favorite beverages of the learned," the same Tissot observes, "is the infusion of that famous leaf, so well known by the name of India tea, which, to our great detriment, has every year, for these two centuries past, been constantly imported from China and Japan. This most pernicious gift first destroys the strength of the stomach, and if it be not soon laid aside, equally destroys that of the viscera, the blood, the nerves, and of the whole body; so that malignant and all chronical disorders will appear to increase, especially nervous disorders, in proportion as the use of India tea becomes common; and you may easily form a judgment, from the diseases that prevail in every country, whether the inhabitants are lovers of tea or the contrary. How happy would it be for Europe, if, by unanimous consent, the importation of this infamous leaf was prohibited, which is endued only with a corrosive force derived from the acrimony of a gum with which it is pregnant."
Having thus considered the dismal and too frequently fatal consequences of the nerves being affected, it is presumed this part of the Essay cannot be more interestingly concluded than by a summary of the distinct symptomatic effects attending, more or less, complaints of the nerves; and although the following symptoms are alarming with regard to their number and variety, yet the reader may be assured there is not one specified but what is either the immediate or ultimate effect of a nervous affection, and which is too frequently the consequence of the violent astringency of foreign tea taken injudiciously as a constant aliment:--A faintness, succeeded with a delusive vision of motes, mists, and clouds, falling backwards and forwards before the distempered sight--A yawning, gaping, stretching out of the arms, twitching of the nerves, sneezing, drowsiness, and contraction of the breast--Dulness, debility, distress, and dismay, with a great sense of weariness--A wan complexion, a languid eye, a loathing stomach, and an uncertain appetite, which, if not immediately satisfied, is irremediably lost--Heartburning, bilious vomitings, belchings, pains in the pit of the stomach, and shortness of breath--Dizziness, inveterate pains in the temples and other parts of the head, a tingling noise in the ear, a throbbing of the brain, especially of the temporal arteries--Symptoms of asthma, tickling coughs, visible inflations, and unusual scents affecting the olfactory nerves--Sometimes costive and sometimes relaxed--Sudden flushings of heat, and suffusions of countenance--In the night, alternate sweats and shiverings, especially down the back, which seems to feel as if water was poured down that part of the body--A ptyalism, or discharge of phlegm from the glands of the throat, which generally attends all the symptoms--Troublesome pains between the shoulders, pains attended with hot sensations, cramps and convulsive motions of the muscles, or a few of their fibres--Sudden startings of the tendons of the legs and arms--Copious and frequent discharges of pale and limpid urine--Vertigoes, long faintings, and cold, moist, clammy sweat about the temples and forehead--Wandering pains in the sides, back, knees, ancles, arms, wrists, and somewhat resembling rheumatic pains--The head generally warm, while the rest of the body is cold or chilly--Obstinate watchinqs, disturbed sleep, frightful dreams, the night mare, startings when awake, and the mind filled with the most terrific apprehensions--Tremors of the limbs, and palpitations of the heart--A very variable and irregular pulse--Periodical pains in the head--A sense of suffocation, frequent sighings, and shedding of tears--Convulsive spasms of the muscles, tendons, nerves of the back, loins, arms, hands, and a general convulsion of the stomach, bowels, throat, legs, and indeed almost every other part of the body--A quick apprehension, forgetful, unsettled, and constant to nothing but inconstancy--A wandering and delirious imagination, groundless fears, and an exquisite sense of his sufferings--A gradually sinking into a nervous atrophy or consumption--A perpetual alarm of approaching death--Sometimes cheerful, and sometimes melancholy--Without present enjoyment or future expectation of any thing but increasing misery and debility.--If these symptoms are inconsiderately suffered to continue, they soon terminate in palsy, hip, madness, epilepsy, apoplexy, or in some mortal disease, as the black jaundice, dropsy, consumption, &c.
