Studi Veronesi (Jul 2018)
Drugs or poisons? A Veronese doctor in the eighteenth-century dispute on coffee and chocolate
Abstract
In the eighteenth century the scientists had very different opinions about the new foods that had spread in Europe after the discovery of America. Also in Verona there was a lot of interest in this matter and an illustrious doctor (Giovanni Dalla Bona) published in 1751 an interesting book on this subject (in particular about coffee and chocolate). He took an intermediate position between those who considered these new foods and drinks harmful to health and those who considered them healthy. Dalla Bona, basing on the science of his time, came to a conclusion that coincides with the common sense: it is necessary to distinguish case by case (coffee, for example, is good for some but bad for others) and, above all, to avoid the abuses that are always harmful for the health.
