Excerpted from Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke. The Wise and Moderate Use Whereof
Health is Preserved and Sicknesse Diverted
There remaines to be handled in the last Point, of the Quantity, which is to be drunke: at what Time; and by what persons: because if it be drunk beyond measure, not onely of Chocolate, but of all other drinkes, or meates, though of themselves they are good and wholsome, they may be hurtfull.
And if any finde it Opilative, it comes by the too much use
of it; as when one drinkes over much Wine, in stead of comforting, and warming
him- selfe, he breeds, and nourisheth cold diseases; because Nature cannot overcome
it, nor turne so great a quantity into good nourishment.
So he that drinkes much Chocolate, which hath fat parts,
cannot make distribution of so great a quantity to all the parts; and that part
which remaines in the slender veines of the Liver, must needs cause Opilations,
and Obstructions.
To avoid this inconvenience; you must onely take five or six
ounces, in the morning, if it be in winter; and if the party who takes it, be
Choler- ick, in stead of ordinary water, let him take the distilled water of
Endive. The same reason serves in Summer, for those, who take it physically,
having the Liver hot and obstructed. If his Liver be cold and obstructed, then
to use the water of Rubarb. And to conclude, you may take it till the Moneth of
May, especially in temperate dayes. But I doe not approve, that in the Dogdayes
it should be taken in Spaine, unlesse it be one, who by custome of taking it,
receives no prejudice by it. And if he be of a hot Constitution, and that he
have neede to take it in that season, let it, as is said before, be mingled
with water of Endive; and once in foure dayes, and chiefely when he findes his
stomacke in the morning to be weake and fainting. And though it be true, that,
in the Indies, they use it all the yeare long, it being a very hot Countrey,
and so it may seeme by the same reason it may be taken in Spaine.
