BOTTOMS UP

The much-abused phrase, "in the interests of science", which prompts that last highball and the extra pressure on the accelerator rounding Death Curve is being employed by scientific sealots at Columbia as justification for an epochal experiment. Were it not for their undoubtedly serious intent, this trial of the savants would degenerate into more than an attempt at the world's coffee-drinking championship, for they plan to pour at least one thousand cups of coffee into three dozen otherwise normal young men and women from the university, questioning them after each cup until their ultimate capacity is reached. The conclusions of Columbia's psychophysical experts, published in a sophisticated pamphlet, will decide forever the question--Is Java harmful?

One must admit the extreme novelty of the experiment. It is an upward step in human progress; but there is no practical gain, for it is already accepted that two cups of black Waldorf coffee guaranteed insomnia and a finished thesis. The gallons of steaming fluid which will be consumed might better be sold to shivering football spectators or sent out at midnight to those who grind exceeding slow. Nor can one underestimate the possibility of fatal error and the danger of a total waste of the investigator's time if the frothy decaffeinated stuff from Childs' is used. That the conditions of this scientific drinking bout may be better understood--are the tipplers to clear their taste with Old Golds between cups?