The Virtue and Use of Coffee With Regard to the Plague and Other Infectious…

In the early eighteenth century, when the memory of the Great Plague still haunted Europe, a Cambridge professor made an extraordinary claim: coffee might save you from death itself. Richard Bradley's peculiar and fascinating treatise collects observations from physicians, merchants, and naturalists across Europe to argue for coffee's medicinal virtues against infectious disease. Part earnest medical inquiry, part commercial boosterism, part relic of a world where the line between folk remedy and scientific fact had not yet been drawn, this book offers an intimate window into how early modern people understood contagion, trade, and the body. Bradley ranges from coffee's journey from Ottoman Empire to English coffeehouses, through the specifics of cultivation and preparation, to practical advice on drinking coffee during outbreaks. Whether you believe his claims or not, Bradley's earnest advocacy makes for compelling, often amusing reading. The text captures an era when plague remained a living terror and coffee represented both exotic luxury and potential protection against the invisible threats of disease.