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Effects of Excessive Tea Drinking

About This Item

  • Title: Effects of Excessive Tea Drinking
  • Date: 7 April 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00721
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 7 April 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Tara Ballard W Max Radl Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Effects of Excessive Tea Drinking." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00721.xml (TEI)
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EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE TEA DRINKING.—

The friend who supplied this hashish experience also supplied us with the following account of the result of an excess in tea drinking. The resemblance to some of the most peculiar effects of hashish in large doses, will strike all who have read of them: "Being under an unusual stress of work, which demanded great activity of the brain, I had recourse, as usual, to tea for excitement. For several days successively I took a basin of very strong tea four or five times a day. One night, as I was sitting alone with my mother and writing, I felt a sudden dizziness overcome me immediately after a draught of tea stronger than any I had taken yet, and requested my mother to get me a glass of sherry from the sideboard. Consciousness of surrounding objects left me, and I fell into a dream, which I can only describe by saying that it was indescribably terrific. It seemed to last for ages, and I awoke with the horror of a soul which had been for an eternity in hell. My mother was standing before me with the sherry. I asked her how long I had been insensible. She asked me what I meant; she had just returned with the sherry, not having been absent half a minute."—[National Review.

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