A Treatise Concerning the Properties and Effects
Benjamin Moseley's "A Treatise Concerning the Properties and Effects of Coffee" is a fifth-edition (1792) expansion of a work first published in 1785, blending economic advocacy, botanical and etymological history, and medical argument in defense of coffee cultivation and consumption. The work opens with a lengthy dedicatory preface addressed to imperial and colonial policy rather than to coffee itself. Moseley, physician to Chelsea Hospital and former Surgeon-General of Jamaica, argues that expanding coffee cultivation in Britain's West Indian colonies—chiefly Jamaica—serves both public health and national interest. He contends that coffee estates, unlike sugar plantations, require little capital, employ light labor suited to children, and thrive on poor land unfit for other crops. This, he argues, draws a dispersed population of white smallholders into the interior, which in turn secures the island against slave rebellion, curbs the "retreats of fugitive negroes," and supplies a ready militia—advantages sugar monoculture, dependent on enslaved labor, cannot provide. He recounts the crop's institutional history: Sir Nicholas Lawes's introduction of coffee to Jamaica in 1728, the 1732 merchant subscription that lobbied Parliament for reduced import duties, the resulting Act of 5 George II, and subsequent duty reductions that increased revenue even as rates fell. He supplies export figures, per-acre yield and profit calculations, and comparisons to sugar profitability, urging further duty relief to make Jamaican coffee competitive with foreign imports. A digression on pimento (allspice) as another undervalued colonial commodity reinforces his broader mercantilist argument: domestic colonial produce should displace costly East Indian imports, benefiting manufacturers, shipping, and the treasury alike. The treatise proper then turns to coffee as substance and beverage. Moseley opens with the premise that diet shapes human constitution as profoundly as climate, justifying a systematic inquiry into coffee's dietetic and medicinal properties. He surveys the word's etymology across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Egyptian forms, weighing competing derivations (from roots meaning "to nauseate," "to give appetite," or "to give vigour") and botanical nomenclature from earlier naturalists like Prosper Alpinus and Linnaeus. A substantial historical section traces coffee's diffusion: its first European mention by Alpinus (1591–92) and earlier notice by Leonhart Rauwolff (1573); competing claims over its introduction to France (via Thevenot in 1657 versus earlier claims by La Roque's father) and the opening of Paris's first coffee-house in 1672; and its earlier arrival in England, where Pasqua Rossée opened London's first coffee-house in 1652, predating Paris by two decades. Moseley recounts vivid episodes of religious and political suppression—the Mecca governor Khair Beg's condemnation of coffee-houses on suspicion of intoxication and later reversal by the Sultan of Egypt; recurring bans and Mufti rulings in Cairo and Constantinople; and England's own 1675 royal proclamation shutting coffee-houses as "seminaries of sedition." He also relates the legendary Ethiopian goatherd origin story (via Faustus Nairo) while treating it skeptically, and traces the plant's transplantation from Arabia through Batavia, Amsterdam, Cayenne, Martinique, and finally Jamaica. The treatise's medical core catalogs coffee's chemical constituents (bitter extract, oil, fixed and volatile salts) and the transformative effect of roasting, then details wide-ranging therapeutic applications: relief of headache, vertigo, lethargy, and apoplexy; aid to digestion and correction of stomach "crudities"; use against dropsy, worm complaints, chlorosis, and obstructed menstruation; support as a vehicle for Peruvian bark in fevers where the stomach rejects it directly; efficacy against asthma (citing Sir John Floyer's lifelong case) and consumptive coughs, especially prepared as milk-coffee; and its renowned power to sustain wakefulness among scholars, travelers, and Dervishes. A major section positions coffee as the principal antidote to opium's ill effects—not merely countering drowsiness, as commonly supposed, but relieving the headache, nausea, and debility following opiate use, a property Moseley claims from his own military hospital observations in the tropics. Moseley then engages critics, notably Simon Paulli, refuting the claim (traced to unreliable travelers' anecdotes about a Persian sultan) that coffee saps virility, and citing Sir Thomas Herbert's account of Persian beliefs in coffee's invigorating, Gabriel-given origin. He acknowledges genuine contraindications—for those prone to hemorrhage, extreme nervous sensibility, or bilious excess in rare cases—while insisting these are individual exceptions, not grounds for general condemnation, and criticizes physicians like Robert James (Slare) whose personal aversions were mistaken for universal rules. Practical instruction follows on roasting technique, the necessity of clarifying the brewed liquor of sediment, regional preparation customs (Turkish, Persian, French), and appropriate additions of milk, sugar, or aromatics. The treatise closes by returning to its opening political theme: with proper legislative encouragement and reduced duties, British West Indian coffee could become a cheap, wholesome staple for the poor, displacing "enervating teas" and spirit-drinking, while enriching both colonies and the mother country.
By Benjamin Moseley · First published 1792 · Genre: Medical treatise, History, Natural philosophy