p. 15 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 44. (11/10/1914)

MOST WIDELY USED DRUG

By Daniel H. Kress, M. D.

THE SOURCES OF CAFFEIN, AND ITS HEALTH-DESTROYING EFFECTS — HARDENING OF THE ARTERIES AND PREMATURE OLD AGE FROM ITS USE

By Daniel H. Kress, M. D. New England Sanitarium, Melrose, Mass.

THE drug that is most freely consumed in America is not alcohol or tobacco; it is caffein. The use of alcohol and tobacco is confined chiefly to the male population, and largely to adults, while the use of caffein is found in old and young of both sexes. In speaking of caffein, we include thein, theobromin, and uric acid. All these are practically the same as far as their chemical combination and action are concerned.

SOME SOURCES OF CAFFEIN

Caffein is dispensed at our tables in the tea, coffee, and cocoa we drink. It is served in the meat we eat, red meat and white meat alike, in the form of uric acid; and it is sold at our soda-fountains.

More coffee per capita is used in America than in any other nations of the world. One half of the world's coffee crop comes to America. Each man, woman, and child consumes an average of fourteen pounds of coffee per annum. Each cup of coffee contains from three to four grains of caffein. It is served at our soda-fountains in coca-cola and about one hundred other soft drinks. These soft drinks contain approximately, on an average, the same dose that is dispensed in a cup of coffee. Aside from this, it is found in many or nearly all the headache remedies sold in our drug stores, and in the remedies prescribed by physicians.

TWENTY GRAINS DAILY

In the United States, an average of over two hundred and twenty pounds of meat annually for each person is eaten. Each pound of meat has concealed within its fibers from ten to fourteen grains of uric acid. This makes a daily average of about eight grains of caffein in the meat we consume. Add to this the caffein found in the tea, the coffee, and the soft drinks, and our average consumption of caffein per capita daily does not fall short of twenty grains. About four grains is usually prescribed by physicians as a dose. This means five doses daily.

A HEART IRRITANT

Caffein is termed a heart stimulant. Perhaps a better name would be "heart irritant." It increases the heart's action, making it more vigorous, and raises the blood pressure. In very large doses, the contractions of the heart follow each other so rapidly and are so pronounced that the ventricle has not time to fill, the blood pressure falls, and the heart stops beating. Deaths from this cause are not uncommon in those having heart-disease.

It is a brain irritant. In small doses it increases mental activity, and lessens the feeling of fatigue, and produces wakefulness. In larger doses, it causes feelings of intense fear and nervousness, which may even end in convulsions or temporary insanity.

Small amounts of caffein increase temporarily the irritability and working power of the muscles. In large doses, it brings on a condition of continuous contraction, or what is termed rigor. The muscle fibers become hard and contracted. It is this contraction of the heart muscles that causes death. Caffein is a dangerous drug for those who already have high blood pressure.

THE MOST HOPELESS CASES

In Paris, we are informed, coffee inebriates are regarded as the most hopeless cases for hospital treatment. The brain and nerve degeneration is usually so extensive that dementia and insanity are the rule, and recovery is the exception. Women, it appears, are the chief sufferers there, possibly on account of the more highly sensitive nervous organization, and because women as a rule use coffee and tea more freely than do men. The majority of those treated in the hospitals are said to be laundresses.

Recently the following case was reported: The wife of a rancher at Clearwater, California, was brought to a hospital suffering from caffein poisoning, and in a few days she died. Dr. Lindley, the head of the hospital, gave his report of the case as follows: "Her nervous system was wrecked from overindulgence in the drink. Before acquiring the coffee habit, she was strong and healthy. From drinking a cup a day in the morning, she began taking it at intervals throughout the day, until it acted on her system much as would opium or any other strong stimulant."

TEA AND COFFEE DRUNKARDS

While such cases are exceptional, chronic cases of caffein poisoning are common. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, America's leading food expert, says: "This country is full of tea and coffee drunkards. Caffein has a direct tendency to create Bright's disease. Caffein is the essential alkaloid of coffee, as thein is of tea. Both are dangerous and detrimental drugs."

These drugs are taken usually when the user is fatigued. Possessing no nutritive value, they do not produce energy. They merely deaden the sense of weariness, and enable the one resorting to their use to squeeze out a few extra energy granules stored up in the already nearly depleted nerve cells. Fatigue is nature's signal of danger, indicating the need of rest and recuperation. Caffein pulls down the signals nature erects when in danger, but it does not remove the danger. It allows us to go on unwarned, but not unharmed. It gradually and insidiously brings about changes, in the glands of the body and the arteries, of a degenerating nature, and thus it shortens life.

DISPLACING ALCOHOL

It has been advocated that coffee-houses be opened to counteract the use of alcoholic beverages. In England, less alcohol is consumed per capita at present than ten years ago; but with the decline in the consumption of alcoholic beverages, there has been a corresponding increase in the consumption of tea, coffee, and cocoa. During the past year, about seven pounds per capita was used of tea alone. While the visible effect differs from that of the use of alcohol, the degeneracy it produces is just as marked.

In Ireland, concern is at present felt regarding the prevalent use of these beverages. In a report of the inspectors of the national schools of Ireland, Mr. J. P. Dalton says: "Of the many abuses that require correction, one in particular must be vigorously combated if the race is to be preserved from deterioration. The use of tea is now carried to such dangerous excess that it ranks before alcohol as an enemy of the public health."

It is impossible to take into the human system, day after day and year after year, a poison such as caffein, without in time destroying the living cells with which it is in continuous contact, and bringing about degenerative changes.

THE WEAR ON THE KIDNEYS

Caffein is eliminated chiefly through the kidneys, and the additional burden thrown upon the kidneys in its elimination wears them out prematurely.

To the prevalent use of coffee, tea, cocoa, and meats may be partially ascribed the rapid increase in the mortality from kidney diseases, especially in our large cities. In Chicago, during the past thirty years, there has been an increase of over one hundred and sixty per cent in the mortality rate from this disease. This percentage possibly holds good in other large cities where caffein is so freely consumed.

HOLDING IN AND WHIPPING

The cerebral congestion, high blood pressure, headache, and other unfavorable and disagreeable symptoms arising from the free consumption of meat, tea, and coffee, call for a drug that will exert an opposite influence. This is found in the coal-tar products known as acetanilid, phenacetin, and antipyrin. While caffein stimulates the heart's action, these act as heart depressants. They lower the blood pressure, and relieve the headache due to caffeinism. These drugs are widely dispensed in headache remedies, but they are dangerous. Sudden deaths from their use are not uncommon, especially in cases where the heart is already in a weakened state.

To whip up a tired horse, and prod him on, and at the same time hold him in by the bit, is a foolish procedure, but no more so than it is to resort to the drugs named to counteract the evils resulting from the use of caffein.

CAFFEIN AND THE TOBACCO HABIT

There can be no question but that the use of coffee, tea, and meat leads to the use of cigarettes, and tobacco in its various forms. Of the thousands who have applied to me for aid in getting rid of the tobacco habit, I have found in nearly every case, they were

free users of meats or coffee or both. Those who use meat and coffee most freely were also the greatest slaves of tobacco. The explanation is this: Meat, coffee, and tea are served merely at meal-time. The stimulus received by their use soon wears off, and the demand for another uplift returns; and as the user can not resort to meats or coffee so frequently to obtain this, the discovery is made that it may be obtained from tobacco. Hence recourse is had to cigarettes, and tobacco in general. Because of the public prejudice, women do not commonly resort to tobacco for relief, hence they drink coffee or tea more freely.

In the treatment of the tobacco habit, I have found it necessary to place the patient on a fleshless and coffeeless régime. In every case, when this régime was followed, the desire for tobacco lessened and ultimately disappeared. So long as our modern table food and beverages remain as they are, tobacco will be consumed.

A MENACE LIKE THE SALOONS

In England, during the seventeenth century, coffee and tea houses were opened. In time they became as much of a public nuisance as are our saloons and tobacco stands. Legislative action had to be taken to close them up and save her people from general physical and moral degeneracy. As far as the deteriorating effect upon the human organism is concerned, it matters very little which one of these drugs,—uric acid, caffein, nicotin, or alcohol,—is used. The immediate effect is the same, and the aim in resorting to them is always to obtain momentary stimulation, or that feeling of exhilaration or well-being which all should possess. No one has a right to take any drug for the purpose of making himself feel better than he is, for this is self-deception.

PREMATURE OLD AGE

There are multitudes traveling the path which leads to premature old age and an early death, believing they are on the very highway to happiness and health. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” “Wine,” we are told, “is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

What applies to alcoholic beverages applies with equal force to the other beverages named. Whosoever is deceived by any of these “is not wise.” “Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”

There is a remedy for this world’s ills. It is found in the Spirit of God, the fruits of which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. The Spirit of God imparts health and vitality. Coffee, tea, tobacco, and other drugs so freely dispensed, are the devil’s substitutes for the Spirit of God. The one gives peace. The others say “Peace; when there is no peace.”

OLIVES AND DRIED FRUIT

By A. R. Crist

Lowest producers’ prices. In 50 lb. boxes. ½c extra in less quantities. Peaches, bleached, 5½c a pound; prunes, 8c; pears, 6c; apricots, 11c; almonds, 20c; figs, 6c; honey, extracted, 8c; honey, combed, 10c; olives, large, 50-gal. bbl., 60c per gal; 25-gal. bbl., 70c; 5-gal. can, 75c; 1-gal. can, 80c; medium-size olives, 10c less a gal. All prices f. o. b. Chico. Write for information. A. R. Crist, Chico, Cal.

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WHY NOT

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A Kansas agent for the home workers' books has gone over the same territory for a number of years. She succeeded in placing books in certain homes over and over again. To one family she sold fourteen different volumes. Increasing success has been a marked feature of her work.

Another woman, feeble and 75 years of age, sold enough books in two days to earn a commission of $5.00 and reports two souls awaiting baptism as a direct result of her work.

A girl in Oregon earned an academy scholarship in a short time by selling these small books.

NEED

Criminality, in many instances, has been traced to the reading of pernicious papers and books. Conscientious parents, especially, realize more than ever before the importance of placing wholesome, instructive, and interesting reading in the hands of their children. Better books for this purpose than the 40% books, are hard to find.

HOLIDAY GIFTS

People will lend a listening ear now to any one calling on them with any suitable thing for holiday gifts. It is a great problem with many, to know what to get for a boy, a girl, a young person — in fact, for any one. No mistake is made when they settle on these books. They meet the need of every member of the family, and good books, you know, are always most acceptable. Of the sixteen carried this year, about a dozen are for children especially. Retail prices range from 50c to $1.50.

AGENTS WANTED

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For further information and a free copy of the short story “Alice Goes to Work,” write to our depository in your own state or PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING ASSN. MOUNTAIN VIEW, CAL.

Questions Answered

By Editor

in the December SIGNS MAGAZINE

Is Japan mentioned in the prophecies? Will the Bible prophecy referring to plagues and pestilences be partially fulfilled this winter? Are we about to come to an end of Christianity? If so, will barbarism supplant it? Will the United States lead the world in a confederation of evil and apostasy? What will be the attitude of the United States toward the papacy in the near future? Is heaven closing its accounts with the human family? Will Russia and Turkey meet on the battle-field?

AN EXPONENT OF BIBLE PROPHECY

The Bible clearly forecasts earth’s history to the end of time. The primary object in establishing the Signs of the Times Magazine was to point out and explain these very prophecies. This is done from month to month. If not already informed, we earnestly invite you to become a reader at once, so that day shall not “overtake you unawares.” The subscription price is but $1.00 a year. A sample copy will be sent upon request.

AGENTS WANTED

Many persons are earning their living by taking subscriptions and selling this magazine. Some devote but part of their time to it. There is a constantly growing demand for such a publication, and agents generally find but little difficulty in disposing of 50 to 100 copies a month.

An enthusiast in the north says: “I find there is really a demand for our literature at this time. While on my way up from Regina to deliver my books, I took ten copies of the Signs Magazine for October, and I could have used many more. I not only got rid of the ten, but have eight subscriptions for the magazine. The conductor on the train yesterday was much interested in it, and subscribed for a year.”

Subscriptions or requests for further information should be sent to our depository in your state or SIGNS OF THE TIMES MAGAZINE MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

New Conditions Through Rapid Transportation

CONDITIONS are met in the world now, not only in war but in other directions as well, that are new to this generation. The fleetest means of transportation in the generations that have gone before have been the horse on land and the sailboat on sea; but the railroad, the telegraph, and the steamship have brought the world together in such a way that new problems are presenting themselves. The history of the past is not therefore a criterion by which we may judge the outcome of conditions now confronting us.

As an illustration of this, we may refer to an article from a war correspondent who tells us of conditions brought about through the rapid mobilization of Russian troops, which made it necessary for overwhelming forces to be brought quickly against them. Therefore, the order was given for men to be removed from the battle line in Belgium and France to the eastern scene of war; and inside of two weeks' time 1,200,000 soldiers, with all their war equipment, were taken the whole distance of that one thousand miles, and were ready to engage their enemy on the eastern battle-field.

It would have taken Napoleon, with all of his military genius, months and months to make such a change in his battle lines; but here it is done in just two short weeks. In fact, the largest army that Napoleon ever raised consisted of about 375,000 men.

This rapid communication of course was made possible in part by the telegraph, which could send messages in a moment of time from general to general, and could order equipment as well as men and transportation facilities to be concentrated at given points.

These means of rapid transportation not only afford the facilities for moving men from place to place, but in like manner, seditions, discontents, and causes for strife and unrest may be spread broadcast. Thus things that ordinarily should be a great blessing to humanity, enter as mighty factors into the problems that confront us.

There is no denying the fact that the world is filled with unrest and turmoil. It is so in every nation. The masses of the people are dissatisfied. They are demanding changes, and are threatening revolutions, and there is no quiet place on any corner of the globe to which we may flee as a haven of rest or safety. The causes of strife and discontent in one nation are communicated in a few hours to the other nations of the earth, and the contagion spreads like smallpox or any other physical disease. We may close our eyes to the indubitable evidence, and try to make ourselves feel secure and safe; but we are obliged to acknowledge that the facts and the conditions and the problems of this time, while they are in principle the same with which men have grappled all through the centuries, are no longer neighborhood affairs, but are international perils.

Heretofore one neighborhood might have some special trouble, and other neighborhoods not only be free from it but oblivious to it. But now whatever breaks out in one locality is liable to spread everywhere; and while facilities are so admirable for spreading the good things of this age, they nevertheless are used with mighty power by his satanic majesty in spreading the evil.

Do Not Believe in Miracles

By Editor

IN a recent issue of the New York American, a leading lawyer of New York City is reported to have addressed to the New York Synod a note over a discussion that had arisen in regard to admitting two candidates to the ministry who disavowed their belief in miracles. One of the paragraphs from this note says:

"If a poll were taken of yourselves it would be found that hardly a fraction of our own ministers under forty would say that they believed in miracles. Separately, we can not say to the congregations that we do not believe, because it would be used as a handle of offense by captious members. It is true that our church is not gaining in proportion to population, and it is true that heretical bodies who deny the miracles are gaining. Let us have done with this tomfoolery of dogmas as a means of salvation, and get down to the serious business of life, which is to help mankind to live."

A sentence from another one of the lawyer's paragraphs says, "The object of Jesus' coming was 'to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound'—and to teach men to love one another."

This last quotation indicates that the attorney claims to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but he thinks his church would make great gains if it would disavow the miracles which he claims that "hardly a fraction of our own ministers under forty would say that they believed." How an individual could claim to believe in Christ, and disavow miracles, and still have the logical mind that a lawyer is supposed to possess, is certainly a conundrum. In the first place, the birth of Christ itself was one of the greatest miracles recorded in the sacred volume. One of the first stories about Christ as He entered upon His ministry was of a miracle that He performed at a marriage feast. And we might read the accounts of His raising the dead, healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, and so on to the end of the great list of miraculous things that occupied His busy and devoted life.

The trouble with that poor New York attorney is that he is an infidel and does not know it. And that is the trouble with the greater part of the ministry in this day and age; for as the attorney says, only a fraction of them believe in the miracles of Christ. The individual who has ever had performed on his own heart the miracle of salvation that is brought into the life through Christ, knows in himself that the blessed Lord does perform miracles; for does not His word record that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature"? 2 Cor. 5:17.

The miracle of the new birth, which makes the new creature, opens the way for an individual actually to understand and know by experience the great miracles that Jesus performed. And having experienced the miracle of conversion, and that having been led to a place where he really accepts God's sacred word, the individual can understand the meaning of such statements as those made by the New York attorney; for He who is the Author of man's salvation asks the significant question, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8.

In other words, the Master predicts that true faith in Him will be rare when He comes; and if one considers the expressions of infidelity that are heard among those that profess His name, he recognizes the fact that the Master was able to foretell the conditions of this very time in which we are living.

University Function in Nightgowns

By Editor

QUITE a story is told, in some of the papers, of the "Annual 'Nighty' Rally" that has come to be a regular feature in connection with one of the most influential universities in this great nation. It is not necessary to give the name of the university, because the point in mind is not to advertise the follies of a great educational institution, but to speak of the hilarities that are so common in every quarter, and which show so unmistakably the general tendency toward indecencies and degeneracies. The report tells us that all the various classes of the institution were required to attend the gathering in their "pajamas," but there was an exception in the case of the seniors, who were expected to "wear plain, old-fashioned 'nighties.'"

Such a gathering, if arranged for little children of kindergarten age, would not seem so grotesquely out of place; but what can be the effect, in a moral way, of such unmanly actions on the part of "seniors" who are ready to graduate—not from a high school, nor even from a college, but from a great university?

There are a great many people who insist upon teaching us that the world is getting better and better all the time. But the truth of the matter is that the great majority of mankind are continually lowering their standards, and thereby excusing the follies of this time that would have been spurned by the founders of this great republic as unthinkably disgraceful. Such things as annual "nighty" rallies are certainly beneath the dignity of decent men and women, to say nothing of the higher standards of true Christian morality. Professed ministers of the gospel and influential church people of this time are both excusing and upholding things that decent men of the world, without any pretense to Christianity, would have sternly frowned upon a generation ago.

The Effect on Russians

THE most extensively used intoxicant in Russia is called vodka. Some years ago the minister of finance conceived the idea of having the government take over and manage the manufacture and sale of intoxicants in the Russian Empire. The income was so great that it was considered a big financial stroke. Since the government was in the business, it was only natural that drinking should have been encouraged; for the more liquor was used, the greater the revenue. But it soon became very apparent that the degeneracy of the Russian people was threatening not only a general decay but also irretrievable ruin.

The attention of the czar was called to the matter some months ago, and prohibitory orders were issued. Travelers who have visited sections of Russia when vodka was freely used and dispensed, and who are now passing through the same regions, say that "the towns have become more orderly, and the people save fifty-five per cent of their earnings which formerly were spent for drink. They have also increased their earning capacity through sobriety. There is such a change in that region that the country is hardly recognizable."

There is absolutely no ground for continuing the use of strong drink, but there is much to be said against it. If it were not for the influence of the big liquor trusts, and the money they spend in blinding the public to the evils of strong drink, one of the great props would be taken away from this, the greatest of all sources of debauchery and ruin. And if men could be taught, through the power of the gospel, to get rid of their depraved appetites for such unnatural things as alcoholic drinks, the foundation would be completely removed.

Governments Symbolized by Beasts

CERTAIN of the prophecies represent the governments of earth under the symbols of various kinds of beasts. In view of the awful barbarities of war through which nations promote their ambitions, who will say that the symbol is not a strikingly appropriate one?

Seven Million Homeless and Helpless

By Editor

DESPATCHES during the last few days state that some seven million people, including helpless children, old men and women, and tottering invalids, have been rendered homeless and helpless by the war that is now raging in northern France and Belgium. These despatches do not give estimates of the numbers that are similarly stricken in eastern Europe; but from the heavy fighting that is in progress there, it must be apparent that an equal number are in destitute circumstances in eastern Germany, Poland, eastern Austria-Hungary, and other afflicted sections in that locality. The hard winter of those regions is coming on. Help must be given to those people right away. Otherwise thousands upon thousands of them, who have escaped the bullets and the shells of the furious war, will have to succumb to the still more severe plagues of hunger, cold, and destitution. These conditions should appeal to the American people as nothing in their history has ever appealed to them. Our General Conference is raising thousands and thousands of dollars among our own people to send to those sufferers. Our organization is such that means entrusted to us is placed in safe hands, that administer it directly to those who are suffering. None of it is used for salaries or other expenses, as all our agents have their regular income, and take nothing from this fund. Every cent of it goes to help the afflicted and suffering. Persons desiring to donate for this purpose may send their offerings to the treasurer of the Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, and it will be promptly and safely forwarded.