ABSTRACT
Stimulants have been used medicinally for thousands of years. Chinese physicians have used ma haung, a tea made from the herb Ephedra vulgaris, as a medicinal herb for 5000 years. Chat, another stimulant, was used 2000 years ago by Roman gladiators to overcome fatigue and thus fight longer during contests (Wadler, 1994). Coffee has been in existence since at least A.D. 900, when an Arabian medical book referred to it as useful for a variety of indications, including measles and lust reduction. Coffee drinking was so widespread that coffeehouses were common in England, Arabia, and France as early as the 1600s (Ray and Ksir, 2002).
