The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness.

  • Pattin, H. Cooper.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ritual of temperance, and state hygiene ; contributions towards a rationale in national healthiness. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    44/196 (page 32)
    in tea, etc., with great improvidence. Caffeine exerts its stimulating influence primarily upon the nervous system, not upon the circulatory, as is the case with alcohol. After its consumption, the time occupied in the completion of nervous processes is shortened, and nervous excitability is heightened. This in- fluence is experienced generally in a subjective feeling of brightness. The mind especially becomes alert. Indeed, the stimulating effect of caffeine upon the brain is apt to induce sleeplessness. Argal, it is imprudent to consume cafifeinic stimulants at night, for at anyrate most people, though not neces- sarily for everybody. Personal peculiarity here plays a part. Another effect of caffeine is a removal of the sense of fatigue, and herein also lurks a danger in its unauthorised consumption, unless we at the same time remove the cause of the fatigue. Caffeine causes the respirations to quicken and deepen, and so promotes a more effective aeration of the blood ; it also induces the heart to beat more rapidly, and with greater force. Now, whenever the circulation is made brisk, and we get our blood distributed equably, we experience the subjective feeling of well- being which we endeavour to define by the name of comfort. Increase in force and frequency of the heart's action induce, almost invariably, increased activity of the depurative organs, and the more pro- fuse and excretary exudation from these aids in the removal of waste materials from the blood.