COCA AND COCAINE THEIR HISTORY MEDICAL AND ECONOMIC USES AND MEDICINAL PREPARATIONS: Demanding Books on Fiction : Short Stories (single author): COCA AND COCAINE THEIR HISTORY MEDICAL AND ECONOMIC USES AND MEDICINAL PREPARATIONS

I have been induced to compile this brochure, as supplementary to the short description of Coca given in the “Extra Pharmacopeia,” on account of the attention this plant, and its alkaloid Cocaine, have excited during the past eighteen months.

Although made known to us soon after the conquest of Peru by Pizarro — more than three centuries ago — the accounts travellers have given of Coca have only received about the same credence, and been treated with about the same reverence as we pay to a myth. We have considered the writers as having been overcredulous, as in some cases they undoubtedly were. It was thought the use of the leaves by the Indians of Peru was only that of a masticatory, which simply increased the flow of saliva. We looked upon its so-called nutritive properties, or rather its hunger and thirst-appeasing effects, as well as its power to ward off fatigue and relieve oppressive respiration during mountain ascents, as superstitions unworthy of more attention than the betel-nut mastication practised in India. The surgical uses of Cocaine as a local anaesthetic have, however, to some extent dispelled these illusions, and we have been more ready to receive the accounts of early as well as recent travellers, thinking “there may be something in them.” I have endeavoured to reproduce what many have written, as much as possible in their own words, or translations of them.

The old habit of Coca chewing has clung to the Peruvian Indians after their “power, civilisation, language, alphabets, writings, and even old religions have disappeared,” says Johnston, “the common-life customs and the bodily features of the people have alone survived.” By him Coca is classed among the “Narcotics we indulge in,” along with Tobacco, Hop, Poppy and Lettuce, Indian Hemp, Areca or Betel-nut, Ava or Kava, Red Thorn Apple (Datura sanguinea) fruit, also in use among the Indians of the Andes, Siberian Fungus or Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria), and Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale), formerly used to give bitterness and strength to the fermented liquors of the ancient Britons. But physiologists have more recently classed it with Tea, Coffee, Maté, Kola Nut, and Cocoa — the Theine- (Methyl-Theobromine) and Theobromine-yielding plants — although Cocaine has no chemical alliance with these principles. As a beverage to substitute for tea or coffee, a decoction or an infusion of Coca is worthy of attention at the present time. The Indian use of it in moderation seems to prolong life, without much need of sleep or food, or even the desire for these, although in excess it has, no doubt, a degrading effect. A taste for infusion or decoction of Coca or its pharmaceutical preparations is easily acquired; if a good sample of leaves be used it is not even at first disagreeable...FROM THE BOOKS