matter of course, the
Spaniards acquired a knowledge of its properties; but European nations
also acknowledged its virtues. The Portuguese, French, Germans, and
Dutch, considered it an exceedingly valuable article of diet, and
Hoffman looked upon it both as a food and a medicine. In his
monograph, entitled _Potus Chocolati_, he recommends it in all
diseases of general weakness, macies, low spirits, and in
hypochondrial complaints, and what since his time have been termed
nervous diseases. As one example of the good effects of cacao, he
adduces the case of Cardinal Richelieu, who was cured of eramacausis,
or a general wasting away of the body, by drinking chocolate.[5] And
Edwards informs us that Colonel Montague James--the first white
person born in Jamaica after the occupation of the island by the
English--lived to the great age of 104; and for the last thirty years
of his life took scarcely any other food but chocolate. It is also
certain that those who indulge in excesses find their vigor more
speedily restored by the alternate use of chocolate and coffee than by
any other ingesta; and pigs, goats, and horses, which are fed even on
the spoiled berries, are observed to become very speedily fat, and in
good condition.

But cacao has not only the property of rapidly restoring the invalid
to health, strength, and condition, but a very inconsiderable quantity
of it will sustain life for a long period. The South American Indians
perform extraordinary journeys, subsisting, daring these prolonged
travels, on an incredibly small quantity of chocolate--so small,
indeed, as to render the accounts of travellers upon the subject
almost marvellous. In this respect it resembles coffee, which also
possesses the estimable property of sustaining the powers of life,
while it modifies and restrains the passion of hunger.

It is a curious fact, and how far this condition may be connected with
its powers of sustenance is worthy of inquiry, that chocolate recently
boiled, if the operation be performed in a tin pan, is highly
electrical; and this property may be frequently manifested by
repeating the process.

Cacao, according to Bridges, "was the favourite staple of the Spanish
commerce, trifling as that commerce was; and when the English took
possession of the island of Jamaica, it was that which first engaged
their attention. The extensive plantations left by their predecessors,
who had made it their principal food and only support,