Cothen. 4th January 1833.
(Original in the Hahnemann room of the Leipsic Homoeopathic Polyclinic.).
Hahnemann as dietetist attacked very definitely the use of coffee which was spreading more and more. He published in 1803 his little work:
“COFFEE AND ITS EFFECTS,
According to my own observations.”
In this he explains:
Recent years have added to the ordinary diet several others beverages and foodstuffs which are medicinal: These include taking snuff and smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and hemp, taking opium, eating toadstools, drinking brandy, several kinds of stimulating and medicinal beers, tea and coffee.
Medicinal things are substances which do not nourish, but alter the condition of the healthy body; all changes in the healthy condition of the body are a kind of unnatural or diseased state. Coffee is only a medicinal substance.
Hahnemann distinguishes in all medicines the initial effect, which is quite the opposite from its after effects. With coffee, he says, the first effect is generally a more or less increased vitality.
The animal, natural and life activities which is artificially increases for a few hours, and the after effects which follow after some hours have elapsed, are entirely opposite to each other-an unpleasant sensation of existence, a low degree of vitality, a kind of paralysis of the animal, natural and vital functions.
Hahnemann describes in detail the effects of coffee-drinking early in the morning on waking, at a time when there is often a slackness and unreadiness in the limbs, which makes quick movements difficult laborious; but observe, coffee disperses almost immediately the naturally unpleasant feeling, the discomfort of mind and body, and we suddenly live again.” In the evening if we are tired body and soul demand quiet and sleep, but by drinking medicinal coffee all that disappears. “Sleeplessness, artificial cheerfulness and a wide-awake feeling which has been extorted from nature, steps in.”
We are hungry, we are thirsty. We drink coffee and behold! We feel only a little, or perhaps nothing more of the unpleasant sensation of hunger, or of the anxious parched condition of thirst. Having eaten to satiety, there ensues a sluggishness of body and mind, which allows us to carry on the important functions of digestion undisturbed; coffee, however, destroys this lassitude of body and mind, together with the uneasy feeling in the abdomen.
Coffee drinkers who take this beverage immediately after their meal become cheerful and feel as fresh as if they had barely replenished their stomach. The glutton thinks that he has found an excellent remedy for digestion. But the juices from the chyme which are used for nutrition, cannot possibly be digested in so short a time, or be sufficiently absorbed by the villi of the intestine. The mass therefore goes through the intestine and is too quickly excreted to allow even half of the nourishing particles to benefit the body. An excellent means for digestion that will overcome nature!.Even sexual desire is stimulated by the initial effect of coffee more than by any other artificial means.The first effect of coffee-drinking will stimulate sexual desire ten or even fifteen years too soon, when both sexes are still of a delicate and unripe age, and this leads to early impotency.
Hahnemann finally sums up as follows:
The most designing man of the world, the most cunning waster of vital force, could not have introduced a medicine more potent than coffee into his diet; (in a foot-note Hahnemann adds, ” and to a certain extent tea”) which could induce a sensation of pure pleasure for some hours, and produce in us a more jovial and buoyant cheerfulness, a lively wit, and a glowing imagination, far above that of our ordinary temperament. The muscular movements are quickened to the point of tremor, the ordinary quiet course of our digestive and excretory organs is stimulated to redoubled energy… In this way do we over-rule the wise arrangements of nature, but not without doing harm!
The more remarkable the first effect, the more visibly unpleasant will be the after effect, which of course all do not experience equally, and which is not so injurious to those who live otherwise according to nature’s laws; but in people whose occupation is entirely sedentary, and also in the female sex, the after effects are especially marked: the artificially increased life activity is followed in a few hours by a yawning sleepiness, a greater inactivity, and the buoyant cheerfulness passes into dullness; instead of quickened digestion, painful flatulence and constipation ensue. The artificial warmth of the body vanishes, hands and feet become cold, a kind of ravenous hunger arises, eating and drinking burden the stomach more than before. The sexual desire becomes colder and weaker; sleep is difficult to obtain; the individual is languid and sleepy on waking ill- tempered and depressed. A stronger cup of coffee is taken in order to procure artificial stimulation. In this way the after effects become more and more marked. The skin becomes sensitive to air which is not cold; the digestion becomes more difficult, flatulence increases, and constipation alternates with diarrhoea. Sleep is no longer refreshing. On waking there is confusion of the head together with a sluggishness of the memory, etc.
Small irritations produce migraine in a person addicted to coffee. Very often insufferable toothache occurs, especially at night, as taking coffee is capable of destroying teeth in a very short time, or at least makes them black and yellow. The loss of the incisors is chiefly characteristic of the misuse of coffee. Caries in children and deep seated abscesses in the muscles with a narrow opening have their origin in coffee. “Coffee generally is most harmful to children.” This Hahnemann proves in detail.
He then goes on to the question of breaking off the coffee habit, which must be done very gradually, in which walks play a chief part. Then Hahnemann acknowledges: ” I appreciate the medicinal powers of coffee, when used as a medicine in the right place quite as much as that of any other remedy.”He rejects however, the palliative use of coffee on account of the first effects mentioned above, with the exception of sudden emergencies and threatened illness (such as sea-sickness, poisoning with poppy-syrup, poisoning by hellebore, in cases of syncope through drowning, asphyxiation and coma from exposure to cold). Hahnemann recommends coffee especially for cases whose symptoms strongly resemble the early effects of coffee, and in which the symptoms have been very persistent (unnatural sleeplessness, irritability and vivaciousness, loss of appetite, thirst, frequent painless discharge of soft excreta, and in a certain kind of post- parturition pains). “This, ” Hahnemann concludes his accusation against the misuse of coffee, “is the only rational and wise use of this medicinal beverage which is misused by millions of people to their own disadvantage, and only known by the few, who use it in the right place, as a very wholesome remedy.” In his translation of Cullen’s “Materia Medica” (1790), Hahnemann had previously referred in his foot-notes to the effects of coffee.
I am certain that there is- as I ascertained after many observations-no more powerful antidote to narcotics than strong coffee, the principal effect of which is increased stimulation. (Page 297).
As the virtues of coffee are usually dealt with side by side with those of tea, I take this opportunity to mention a remedy omitted by the author, which because it is the only one f its kind is of great value. Its misuse as a home beverage was the reason for overlooking its real powers.
Then follows a description of the misuse of coffee, in which he says: This mild and pleasant stimulation usually removes a number of unpleasant sensations, such as depression, stomach discomfort, headache, colics, etc. The cheerfulness which follows a sufficiently strong cup of coffee, is a form of intoxication which is just the opposite from that of narcotics. The intoxication is increased and sleep vanishes. (Page 351.).
(Then follow remarks on the excellent effect of coffee in cases of poisoning by narcotics or brandy.).
I have reason to believe that coffee as a medicine may be considered the best anti-narcotic in the Materia Medica, and I recommend it emphatically as such to the physicians… From this deduction it will be apparent how the frequent use of this beverage may constantly cause indigestion nerve disturbances cramps, barrenness, effeminacy, sentimentality, inconstancy and several other demoralising tendencies which are degenerate characteristics of our (eighteenth) century…Symptoms of bodily inertia, irritability of nerves are incompatible with its use (352.) Also in the “Organon” (sixth edition) Hahnemann mentions the homoeopathic medicinal effect of coffee, as in the annotation to 26;
The ill effect of a too emotional excitement is removed by a drink of coffee. which would also be capable of producing it.
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann