Gephart[231]
give the food value of an ordinary restaurant cup of coffee as 195.5
calories, and Locke[232] gives it as 156.

Mattei[233] found that 8 cc. of an infusion of roasted Mocha coffee of
five-percent strength suppressed incipient polyneuritis in pigeons
within a few hours' time. Their weight did not improve, but otherwise
they were completely restored to health. However, in from four to six
weeks after the apparent cure, the symptoms rapidly returned and the
pigeons perished, with symptoms of paralysis and cerebral complications.
The temporary cure was probably due to caffein stimulation and secondary
actions of the volatile constituents of coffee, which may be related to
the vitamines; for it is not likely that the vitamines would withstand
the heat of roasting. If B-vitamine does occur in roasted coffee, it is
present only in traces.[234]

The inclusion of coffee in the average dietary is warranted because of
its evident worth as an aid to digestion and for its assimilating power,
thus earning its characterization as an "adjuvant food."

_Action of Coffee on Bacteria_

The employment of coffee as an aid to sanitation has been but little
considered. Coffee, when freshly roasted and ground, is deodorant,
antiseptic, and germicidal, probably due to the empyreumatic products
developed during the process of roasting. An infusion of 0.5 percent
inhibits the growth of many pathogenic organisms, and those of 10
percent kill anthrax bacteria in three hours, cholera spirilla in four
hours, and many other bacteria, including those producing typhoid, in
two to six days.[235]

The maintenance of a low rate of contraction of typhoid fever has often
been attributed to drinking of coffee instead of water, the action of
the coffee being partly due to the bactericidal effect of the caffeol
and partly to the boiling of the water before infusion. The stimulating
tendency of the caffein to sustain and to "tide over" those of low
vitalities is also evidenced.

_Use of Coffee in Medicine_

Coffee has been employed in medicinal practise as a direct specific, as
a preventive, and as an antidote. The _United States Dispensatory_[236]
summarizes the uses of caffein and coffee as follows:

Caffein is a valuable remedy in practical medicine as a cerebral
and cardiac stimulant and as a diuretic. In undue _somnolence_, in
_nervous headache_, in _narcotism_, also, at times when the
exigencies of life requi