INTRODUCTION.
Each race has its fashions and fancies. The Indian munches the betel; the Chinaman woos with passion the brutalizing intoxication of opium; the European occupies his idle hours or employs his leisure ones in smoking, chewing or snuffing tobacco. Guided by a happier instinct, the native of South America has adopted Coca. When young, he robs his father of it; later on, he devotes his first savings to its purchase. Without it he would fear vertigo on the summit of the Andes, and weaken at his severe labor in the mines. It is with him everywhere; even in his sleep he keeps his precious quid in his mouth.
But should Coca be regarded merely as a masticatory? And must we accept as irrevocable the decision of certain therapeutists: "Cocaine, worthless; Coca, superfluous drug"?[1]
For several years laryngologists such as: Fauvel, of France; Morell Mackenzie and Lennox Browne, of England; and Elsberg, of America, had undertaken the defense of Coca.
Under such patronage Coca and its preparations were not slow in becoming popular.
Charles Fauvel was the first to make use of it as a general tonic, having a special action on the larynx; and to make known its anæsthetic and analgesic qualities.
Coca was further recommended, as it were empirically, against stomatitis, gingivitis, gastric disturbances, and phthisis (Rabuteau), Eléments de thérapeutique et de pharmacologie.
Although striking effects were obtained from this valuable medicine, its full worth was yet unknown and there was diversity of opinion as to its mode of action, until the communications of Köller, of Vienna, on Coca and Cocaine, appeared in 1884.
These interesting publications led to such general discussion among medical men, that nearly every one eagerly followed the work, and watched the splendid results obtained by the Viennese physician (now Professor of Ophthalmology in New York Polyclinic).
It is found that studies made of the active principles of Coca have entirely corroborated our previsions, and probably no subject has received greater attention than have the virtues of this little Peruvian shrub, formerly looked upon in Europe with so much indifference.
The scientific study of the principles of Coca may be considered as completed; and we believe that the time has arrived in which to summarize data regarding this therapeutic agent, so that the employment of our preparations may be based on positive clinical experience.
The aim of this modest work is to offer to the medical profession a short account of the history of Coca, and of the investigations which it has called forth up to the present day.
We propose to divide our subject into five parts.
1ST. We will describe the botanical character of Coca, and also speak of its culture and the mode of gathering it.
2D. Its history, its properties and uses.
3D. The physiological researches made in the domain of Coca, devoting a special chapter to Cocaine.
4TH. Its therapeutic application.
Finally we will quote some general conclusions and explanations regarding the method of using our different preparations, based on observations made by competent physicians in Europe and America.
SPECIMEN OF THE COCA SHRUB.
(Grown in a Hot-house by Mr. Mariani showing general frail condition of the leaf.)
CHAPTER I.
ERYTHROXYLON COCA,
ITS BOTANICAL CHARACTER.
Coca is indigenous to South America. The different botanists disagree as to which exact family it should be assigned. Linnæus, De Candolle, Payer, Raymundi of Lima, Huntk, and others, place it in the family of the Erythroxyleæ, of which there exists but one genus, the Erythroxylon, while Jussien adopts another classification and places it in the family of the Malpighiaceæ (genus Sethia). Lamarck, on the contrary, believes that this plant should be classed among the family of Nerprem (Rhamneæ).
Erythroxylon Coca is a shrub which reaches a height of from six to nine feet and the stem is of about the thickness of a finger. In our climate it cannot thrive except in a hot-house, and there its height does not exceed one metre.
The root, rather thick, shows multiple and uniform divisions; its trunk is covered with a ridged bark, rugged, nearly always glabrous, and of a whitish color. Its boughs and branches, rather numerous, are alternant, sometimes covered with thorns when the plant is cultivated in a soil which is not well adapted to it.
The leaves, which fall spontaneously at the end of each season, are alternate, petiolate, with double intra-accillary stipules at the base. In shape they are elliptical-lanceolate, their size varying according to the nature of the plant or of the soil in which it grows.
The leaf of Coca gathered in Peru, of which we give two figures of the natural size, is generally larger and thicker than the leaf of the Bolivian Coca. It is also richer in the alkaloid, consequently much more bitter.
The Coca leaf from Bolivia, smaller than the Peruvian leaf, is as much esteemed as the latter, although it contains less of the alkaloid. It possesses so exquisite and so soft an aroma, indeed, that the coqueros seek it in preference to any other.
LEAVES OF PERUVIAN COCA, NATURAL SIZE
A. Upper surface of the leaf.
B. Lower surface of the leaf, showing the longitudinal projections of the two sides of the midrib.
The Coca leaves of Brazil and Colombia are much smaller than those of Peru and Bolivia. Their color is much paler. Containing but traces of the alkaloid they are not bitter, and possess a pleasant, but very volatile aroma.
One of the most important characteristics of the Coca leaf is the disposition of its nervures; parallel with the midrib two longitudinal projections are to be seen, which, starting from the base of the leaf, extend in a gentle curve to its point.
LEAVES OF BOLIVIAN COCA, NATURAL SIZE
(Lower surface.)
The upper surface of these leaves is of a beautiful green tint; the lower surface of a paler green, except, however, near the midrib. At this point, there is a strip of green darker than the rest, which becomes brown in the withered leaves.
LEAF OF COCA OF COLOMBIA, NATURAL SIZE
The flowers, small, regular and hermaphrodite, white or greenish yellow, are found either alone or in groups in little bunches of cyme at the axil of the leaves or bracts, which take their place on certain branches. The disposition into cymes is that most commonly met with. They are supported by a slender pedicel, somewhat inflated at the top, the length of which does not exceed one centimetre.
NERVURES OF THE LEAF OF PERUVIAN COCA, SEEN BY TRANSMITTED LIGHT. NATURAL SIZE.
The sepals, joined at the base and lanceolated, are of a green tint with a whitish top. The petals, half a centimetre in length, pointed, concave inside and yellowish white, exhale a rather pleasant odor. They are provided with an exterior appendage, of the same color and of the same consistency, surmounted on each side with an ascending fimbriated leaf, irregularly triangular in shape. The stamens, at first joined in a tube for one-third of their length, afterward separate into white subulated strings, provided with an obtuse ovoid anther which extends a little beyond the petals. The ovary is ovoid in shape and green in color, thickening at the top into a yellowish glandular tissue. The style which rises above it separates into three diverging branches, provided with orbicular papilliform bodies at their extremity, obliquely inserted into the slender patina.
Seeds of Coca.
The fruit is a drupe of an elongated ovoid form, being a little more than a centimetre in length, of a reddish color when fresh, and having a tender, thickish pulp inclosing a seed. This seed shows longitudinal furrows and alternate vertical projections which make its division irregularly hexagonal. When the fruit is dried, the skin assumes a brownish color, shrivels up and molds itself on the protuberances and irregularities of the seed.