enotes a kind of drink, prepared from these berries; very familiar in Europe for these 80 years, and among the Turks for 150.

Its original is not well known. Some ascribe it to the prior of a monastery; who, being informed by a goat-herd goat-herd that his cattle sometimes browsing on the tree would wake and caper all night, became curious to prove its virtue; accordingly, he first tried it on his monks, to prevent their sleeping at matins.

Others, from Sehehabeddin, refer the invention of coffee to the Persians: from whom it was learned in the 15th century by Gemaluddin, mufti of Aden, a city near the mouth of the red sea; and who having tried its virtues himself, and found that it dispelled the fumes which oppressed the head, inspired joy, opened the bowels, and prevented sleep, without being incommodeed by it, recommended it first to his dervishes, with whom he used to spend the night in prayer. Their example brought coffee into vogue at Aden; the professors of the law for study, artisans to work, travellers to walk in the night, in fine every body at Aden, drank coffee. Hence it passed to Mecca; where first the devotees, then the rest of the people, took it. From Arabia Felix it passed to Cairo. In 1511, Kahlie Beg prohibited it, from a persuasion that it inebriated, and inclined to things forbidden. But Sultan Caidou immediately after took off the prohibition; and coffee advanced from Egypt to Syria and Constantinople. The dervishes declaimed against it from the Alcoran, which declares, that coal is not of the number of things created by God for food. Accordingly, the mufti ordered the coffee-houses to be shut; but his successor declaring coffee not to be coal, they were opened again. During the war in Candia, the assemblies of news-mongers making too free with state affairs, the grand Vizier Cuproli suppressed the coffee-houses at Constantinople; which suppression, though still on foot, does not prevent the public use of the liquor there. Thevenot, the traveller, was the first who brought it into France; and a Greek servant, named Pafqua, brought into England by Mr Dan Edwards, a Turkey merchant, in 1652, to make his coffee, first set up the profession of coffee-man, and introduced the drink into this island.

The word coffee is originally Arabic: the Turks pronounce it cahab, and the Arabs cahab; which some authors maintain to be a general name for any thing that takes away the appetite, others for any thing that promotes appetite, and others again for any thing that gives strength and vigour.—The Mahometans, it is observed, distinguis three kinds of cahab. The first is wine, or any liquor that inebriates; the second is made of the pods that contain the coffee-berry; this they call the Sultan's coffee, from their having first introduced it on account of its heating less than the berry, as well as its keeping the bowels open: the third is that made with the berry itself, which alone is used in Europe, the pods being found improper for transportation. Some Europeans who imported the pods called them the flower of the coffee-tree. The deep brown colour of the liquor occasioned its being called syrup of the Indian mulberry, under which specific name it first gained ground in Europe.

The preparation of coffee consists in roasting, or giving it a just degree of torrefaction on an earthen or metallic plate, till it have acquired a brownish hue equally deep on all sides. It is then ground in a mill, as much as serves the present occasion. A proper quantity of water is next boiled, and the ground coffee put into it. After it has just boiled, it is taken from the fire, and the decoction having stood a while to settle and fine, they pour or decant it into dishes. The ordinary method of roasting coffee amongst us is in a tin cylindrical box full of holes, through the middle whereof runs a spit: under this is a semicircular hearth, whereon is a large charcoal-fire: by help of a jack the spit turns swift, and so roasts the berry; being now and then taken up to be shaken. When the oil rises, and it is grown of a dark brown colour, it is emptied into two receivers made with large hoops, whose bottoms are iron plates: there the coffee is shaken, and left till almost cold; and if it look bright and oily, it is a sign it is well done.

Very different accounts have been given of the medicinal qualities of this berry. To determine its real effects on the human body, Dr Percival has made several experiments, the result of which he gives in the following words: "From these observations we may infer, that coffee is slightly astringent, and antiseptic; Vol II. that it moderates alimentary fermentation, and is p. 127. powerfully sedative. Its action on the nervous system probably depends on the oil it contains; which receives its flavour, and is rendered mildly empyreumatic, by the process of roasting. Neuman obtained by distillation from one pound of coffee, five ounces five drachms and a half of water, fix ounces and half a drachm of thick fetid oil, and four ounces and two drachms of a caput mortuum. And it is well known, that rye, torched with a few almonds, which furnishes the necessary proportion of oil, is now frequently employed as a substitute for these berries.

"The medicinal qualities of coffee seem to be derived from the grateful sensation which it produces in the stomach, and from the sedative powers it exerts on the vis viva. Hence it afflicts digestion, and relieves the head-ach; and is taken in large quantities, with peculiar propriety, by the Turks and Arabians; because it counteracts the narcotic effects of opium, to the use of which those nations are much addicted.

"In delicate habits, it often occasions watchfulness, tremors, and many of those complaints which are denominated nervous. It has been even suspected of producing palsies; and from my own observation, I should apprehend, not entirely without foundation. Shaw affirms, that he became paralytic by the too liberal use of coffee, and that his disorder was removed by abstinence from that liquor.

"The following curious and important observation is extracted from a letter with which I was honoured by Sir John Pringle, in April 1773: "On reading your letter concerning coffee, one quality occurred to me which I had observed of that liquor, confirming what you have said of its sedative virtues. It is the best abater of the paroxysms of the periodic asthma that I have seen. The coffee ought to be of the best Mocco, newly burnt, and made very strong immediately after grinding it. I have commonly ordered an ounce for one dish; which is to be repeated fresh after the interval of a quarter or half an hour; and which I direct to be taken without milk or sugar. The medicine in general is mentioned by Mulgrave, in his treatise De arthritide anomala; but I first heard of it from a physician in this place, who having once practiced practised it in Litchfield, had been informed by the old people of that place, that Sir John Floyer, during the latter year of his life, kept free from, or at least lived easy under, his asthma, from the use of very strong coffee. This discovery, it seems, he made after the publication of his book upon that disease." Since the receipt of that letter, I have frequently directed coffee in the asthma with great success."