THÉ MARIANI, OR CONCENTRATED EXTRACT OF COCA (TEA MARIANI).
As its name indicates, Mariani's concentrated extract of Coca, or Thé Mariani, contains within a small bulk all the active principles of the Coca leaf. This extract, prepared in special apparatuses which prevent all alteration and preserve all its properties and all its aroma, answers entirely in the various modes of using Coca and constitutes a most scrupulously exact preparation in dose, the most convenient and the most active that could be desired.
Thé Mariani is capable of indefinite preservation and easy of transportation; it renders great service to persons who make mountain ascensions, fatiguing marches, or long journeys through unhealthy countries, and in fact in whatever may be called fatiguing work or pleasure.
Thé Mariani may be taken in the dose of from three to six teaspoonfuls in the course of the day, clear, or mixed with brandy, wine, water or milk, etc., hot or cold, in the latter cases sweetened to taste, if desired.
Coca Tea or Infusion.—A teaspoonful of the Thé Mariani, added to a cup of hot water, sweetened to the taste, with or without the addition of cream or milk, makes a very agreeable drink, more digestive, more tonic, and less exciting than coffee or tea, while possessing in a higher degree the tonic and stimulating properties of those two substances.
It is in this form that Coca is especially used in Peru and Bolivia, where it is preferred to the Chinese tea.
Persons who drink Chinese tea at meals may advantageously substitute the Thé Mariani for it.
For patients who cannot generally take milk, it is advisable to add Thé Mariani. Excellent results will be obtained.
Coca Gargles and Sprays.—Independently of its tonic and reconstituent action, Coca possesses anæsthetic and soothing properties that have been observed and made use of in practice by laryngologists in the form of a spray, in the proportion of a teaspoonful of Thé Mariani to half a glassful of warm water.
An ambulance physician of Tonkin, who has experimented with Thé Mariani, sends the following note:
"Thé Mariani has rendered us real service during expeditions as well as in hospital practice; on the march it makes with boiled water, with or without the addition of sugar, a very agreeable, tonic and stimulating drink; a veritable reserve food, it takes the place of alcoholic drinks and insufficiency of food, and aids the men in bearing the most distressing fatigue. The water of swamps, rivers or ditches, mixed with a few spoonfuls of Thé Mariani, could be drank without any inconvenience, and assuaged thirst.
"Thé Mariani stimulates the appetite, overcomes atony of the digestive organs, and prevents and combats diarrhœa efficiently.
"Mixed in small quantity with fresh or condensed milk, it gives it an agreeable taste and causes it to be borne by the most delicate stomachs; hence it becomes a valuable adjuvant in the treatment of the endemic dysenteries and diarrhœas of tropical countries.
"Finally, its exclusive use, even its excessive use for several days, has not seemed to us to exert any injurious influence on the system, as the abuse of coffee or of alcoholic drinks had certainly done under like circumstances."
Dr. Fordyce Barker, Dr. J. H. Douglas, Dr. Henry B. Sands and Dr. Geo. F. Shrady have authorized us to make known that it was due to Thé Mariani, added to milk (in the proportion of a teaspoonful of the Thé to a cup of milk), that they were able to nourish Gen. Grant, the ex-President, when he was unable to support any other food. By this means they succeeded in prolonging the life of their illustrious patient for several months.
Coca taken in infusion gave excellent results to Tschudy while he was sojourning in the valley of the Puna, the highest in Bolivia, which has given its name to the disease of mountain sickness, known in Peru by the name Mal de Puna, also designated by the words sorroche, veta and mareo; this last term shows clearly enough the analogy which exists between sea-sickness and the influence of great altitudes on the human body. Experience has proved the usefulness of Coca against dyspnœa and vomiting, so that the Indians who make ascensions always carry a stock of Coca with them. Dr. Tschudy found himself comfortable by the use of it while hunting in those valleys, at a height of ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea.
Dr. Salemi, of Nice, gives an account of a case of epilepsy in a woman, 38 years of age, cured by the daily and prolonged use of Thé Mariani, given in increasing doses (ten drops daily at first and eighty drops daily at the end of a month). This case is not an isolated one.