I don't know much about the history of how coffee was prepared by older cultures and historic Europeans, but did they experience jitters like we can today with coffee? Were they aware of the connection, and did they try anything to prevent jitters? I'm just in a coffee shop now and curious about how coffee jitters were regarded in everyday culture in days of yore. Thanks!
In Honore de Balzac's The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee, written in the 1830s, he says that "… you will fall into horrible sweats, suffer feebleness of the nerves, and undergo episodes of severe drowsiness. I don't know what would happen if you kept at it then: a sensible nature counseled me to stop at this point, seeing that immediate death was not otherwise my fate."