Page 7 Advertisements Column 2

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 147, 3 September 1872, Page 7

The following from the Lancet may be interesting to the mining class, who as a rule are heavy tea-drinkers : "Tka Duitnkakds. —Dr Arlidge, one of the Pottery Inspectors in Staffordshire, has put forth a very sen« ; hle protest against a very pernicious c.:si, >m which rarely receives sufficient attention either from the medical profession -r the public, lie says that the women of the working classes nuke tea a j principal article of diet instead of an occasional beverage : thev drink it several times a dav, and This is no douht the case, and, as Dr Arlidge r'marks, a portion of the reforming zeal which keeps up s:ich a tierce and Ivtter agitata-ti agunst intoxicating drinks, might advantageously he diverted to the repression of i his very serious evil of tea-tipphng among the poorer classes. Tea, in anything bevond moderate quantities, is as distinctly a narcotic poison as is opium or alcohol. It is canable of ruining the digestion, of enfeebling and disordering the heart's action, and of generally shattering the nerves. And it must he remembered that not merely is it a question of narcotic excess, hut the enormons quantity of hot water which tea-bibbers necessarily take is exceedingly prejudicial both to digestion and nutrition. In short, without preten ling to place ihis kind of evil on a level as to general effect with those caused by alcoholic drinks, one nny wed insist that onr teetotal reformers have over-looked, and even to no small j extent encouraged, a form of animal, indulgence whieh is as distinctly sensual, extravagant, and ! pernicious, as any beer-swilling or gin-drinking lin th n world."