VIN MARIANI.
This is the first of the preparations of Coca and the one most generally adopted; to the tonic and stimulant action of the drug there is added that of a choice quality of wine.
Vin Mariani contains the soluble parts of the Coca plant. The combination of Coca, with the tannin and the slight traces of iron which this wine naturally contains, is pronounced the most efficacious of tonics.
The fresh Coca leaves that we employ, after careful selection, come from three different sources and are of incomparable quality. It is this that gives to our wine that special taste and agreeable aroma which renders it so acceptable to the sick.
It is likewise to the combination and preparing of these three varieties of Coca leaf in our wine that we can attribute this important fact: during more than thirty years, no matter in how large doses taken, Vin Mariani has never produced cocainism, nor any other unpleasant effects.[22]
Vin Mariani is a diffusible tonic, the action of which is immediate. This action, instead of being localized on a single organ, the stomach, spreads to the whole system. Taken into the circulation, it awakens in its course the retarded functions of every organ, and this is owing to the presence in our preparation of the volatile principles of the plant.
Unlike other tonics, the astringent properties of which lead at length to heat and constipation, Vin Mariani does not produce any disorder of the digestive functions; it stimulates them, exerts a refreshing action on the gastric mucous membrane, and on that account so advantageously replaces the preparations of cinchona, iron, strychnine, etc.
"There is," says Dr. Mallez, "a form of anæmia to which the attention of physicians has not yet been called, and which yields marvelously to the employment of Vin Mariani; we allude to that state of profound depression of the economy, of extremely marked impoverishment of the blood, which also results from the prolonged abuse of balsamics in the treatment of diseases of the urinary passages.
"The number of persons who, attacked with blennorrhagia, use cubebs, copaiba, turpentine, etc., to a deplorable extent is considerable. So true is this that, out of a hundred young dyspeptics, we may affirm without fear of being in error that at least forty of them have become so by the use of balsamics.
"In like manner, the number of patients affected with urinary gravel whom the prolonged and excessive use of the agents just mentioned, has rendered dyspeptic and then neuropathic is enormous. Like the former, they owe the profound disorder of their digestive functions to the immoderate use of resins and oleo-resins.
"It is of the first importance, therefore, to relieve these persons by making them take, after having given them light laxatives and some preparations intended to strengthen the stomach, not iron, not cinchona, not, as we have said above, local tonics, which would be of little if any use, but diffusible tonics, that is to say, those that act upon the local condition and at the same time upon the general condition, and which, moreover, do not constipate.
"It is here that Vin Mariani, proves its great advantage and succeeds where other tonics have failed, in stimulating the functions of the stomach. On the one hand by the small quantity of tannin which it contains, on the other through the active principles of Coca, associated with the wine, which serves as a vehicle, exciting the vitality of each organ separately, not, however, without having previously exerted its vivifying action on the mucous membrane of the stomach itself." (Gazette des Hopitaux, Nov. 23, 1877.)
The analgesic properties of Vin Mariani have received a happy application in clinical laryngoscopy by Dr. Ch. Fauvel. This eminent specialist has made use of it for the past twenty-six years with unvarying success in all affections of the laryngeal mucous membrane, the air passages, and the vocal organs. In granular angina it takes the place of the topical medication and cauterizations which are so often injurious when they are used indiscriminately and to excess.
The employment of Vin Mariani rapidly relieves patients of the feeling of heat and tingling which is one of the most annoying symptoms of this very common disease of the throat. (Gazette des Hopitaux, May 12, 1877.)
Dr. Beverley Robinson recommends Vin Mariani as a heart tonic.
Dr. W. H. Pancoast says that Vin Mariani is a valuable preparation and a tonic of the highest merit.
Dr. Jules Bouvyer, of Cauteretz, employs it with success in certain affections of the larynx as an adjuvant to the sulphurous treatment.
In 1875, in his Traitement rationnel de la phthisie pulmonaire, Dr. de Pietra Santa said, page 394:
"Among the most renowned practitioners of Paris, Péan, Barth, G. Sée, and Cabrol have promptly adopted the preparations of Coca. Ch. Fauvel prescribes it in affections of the respiratory passages. It is in these diseases that I, too, have had occasion to advise its daily use in the most convenient, the most agreeable, and the most active form—that of the Vin Tonique de Mariani."
Thus has been realized Réveil's prediction: "This substance (Coca) is destined to take an important rank in therapeutics."
In the Revue de Thérapeutique médicaux-chirurgicale, June 11, 1876, page 381. Bibliographie: Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des sciences médicales, par A. Dechambre, Dr. H. Cottin thus closes his article:
"In France, we are using a great deal of Coca wine, and it is tending to take the place of all other tonic wines; it is borne a longer time by the stomach and is more agreeable to the palate. M. Mariani has contributed much to the popularization of Coca by the perfection of his preparations, vin, thé élixir and pâte. These are the forms at present most employed."
Dr. Chapusot, of Paris, thus sums up his personal observations: "A claret-glass of this wine has always been enough to make me forget hunger and to sustain my strength; I have felt a grateful warmth and a general exaltation of the economy; the digestion of the following meal has always been easier than if I had not taken the Vin Mariani, and, although I had not such a ravenous appetite as if I had gone without it, I ate a good deal, the stomach appearing stronger and more active."
It was Dr. Ch. Fauvel who gave our wine the very striking and exact title of "Tensor of the vocal cords." He says: "Thanks to Vin Mariani, I have been able to restore the voice of many lyric artists who would have been unable without this potent agent to give their performances."
Dr. J. Leonard Corning, in Brain Exhaustion, New York, 1884, pages 78 and 112, says: "Of all the medicaments that I employ in the very numerous cases of irritability, Vin Mariani has rendered the greatest service. I do not except even the bromides, for this preparation of Coca possesses the calmative properties of those salts without producing the unpleasant depression which characterizes them."
The same author continues:
"The Vin Mariani is the remedy par excellence for ennui. At the same time it produces a fortifying action on the cerebral center and gives rise to a decided sensation of well-being."
Dr. Morell Mackenzie, London, advises the Vin Mariani as a stimulant and tonic, and uses it especially with speakers and singers.
19 Harley Street,
Cavendish Square, W., London.
Gentlemen:—I have much pleasure in stating that I have used the Vin Mariani for many years, and consider it a valuable stimulant, particularly serviceable in the cases of vocalists.
Yours faithfully,
Morell Mackenzie, M. D.
Professor Sajous, of Philadelphia, who has experimented with Vin Mariani in troubles of the vocal organs, has obtained excellent results from its use, and he advises it, not only as a restorative of the voice, but as a general tonic.
Dr. Libermann, Surgeon-in-Chief, French Army, communicates his experience, as follows:
"I have the honor to inform you of the results which I have obtained in my long career of military practice from the use of Vin Mariani.
"I have used it with great success for profound anæmia resulting from long and tedious campaigns in hot countries, and accompanied, as is nearly always the case, by gastro-intestinal irritation with loss of appetite and dyspepsia. Two or three Bordeaux-glasses of Vin Mariani daily, removed that condition quite rapidly, by restoring the appetite and the tolerance of the stomach for a tonic aliment.
"I have also employed it in cases, happily rare in our army, of chronic alcoholism resulting from the abuse of brandy, absinthe or strong liquors. The Vin Mariani produced all the excitement sought by drinkers, but had at the same time a sedative influence on their nervous systems. I have frequently seen hardened drinkers renounce their fatal habit and return to a healthy condition.
"I have also used Vin Mariani to save smokers of exaggerated habits, from nicotinism. A few glasses of Vin Mariani taken in small doses, either pure or mixed with water, acted as a substitute for pipes and cigars, because the smokers found in it the cerebral excitement which they sought in tobacco, wholly preserving their intellectual faculties.
"I have also employed it with success for chronic bronchitis and pulmonary phthisis. Vin Mariani increases the appetite and diminishes the cough in these two morbid states.
"To combat the cough I give it mixed with water in the form of tisane, a Bordeaux-glass of Mariani in a glass of hot water.
"Besides I have used it to the greatest advantage in convalescence from typhoid fever, when no wine, not even Bordeaux, was retained by the stomach on account of gastric irritation which is the rule after fevers of this nature.
"Although I have confined myself to giving but a rapid glance at the results that I have obtained, I have the statistics, which I keep in reserve should they be needed.
"I can certify that Vin Mariani is the most powerful weapon that can be put in the hands of military physicians to combat the diseases, the infirmities, and even the vicious habits engendered by camp life and the servitude of military existence."
Dr. Villeneuve, among other cases of morphinomania conquered by the combined use of the pâte and the Vin Mariani, communicated to us in 1884 the following observation:
"M. X...., barrister, 32 years of age, five years ago began to use morphine preparations as a remedy against a very alarming chronic bronchitis and granulations in the throat, which were irritated constantly by cigarette smoking.
"The patient at first only used morphine, but his physicians committed the imprudence of treating him by hypodermic injection. A notable change for the better was produced during the first month, but, unfortunately, abuse succeeded promptly the use of the medicament—so much so that when I commenced to treat the patient, he was taking daily from 1 gramme 50 centigrammes to 1 gramme 80 centigrammes of morphine hypodermically. When he was four hours without his dose there appeared insomnia, hallucinations and delirium; constipation lasting sometimes for fifteen days, which brought on in the spring a very alarming perityphlitis, jerking of the muscles, sudden frights, dyspepsia, and at last frightful congestion of the face whenever he drank a drop of wine or brandy.
"After a month's treatment I had succeeded in reducing the daily doses without causing alarming symptoms; the physiological functions seemed to awaken again. However, the congestion and especially the dyspepsia was very grave, and the cough which had been suppressed by morphine returned. It was then that I treated my patient with phosphate of lime, the pâte and the Vin Mariani. Lacking his habitual stimulant, he was plunged in a semi-coma from which he could not always be relieved with weaker daily doses of morphine.
"The danger I feared most was a relapse of bronchitis, and that the cough and expectoration might end fatally. But in about a week, during which he took ten doses of Pâte de Coca daily, the cough became less fatiguing and disappeared entirely in about twenty days. The patient then commenced to take small doses of Vin Mariani (two Madeira-glasses a day). At first congestion appeared, but little by little, as digestion became more easy, my patient, who on account of his profound anæmia could not tolerate any table wines, took at first a small glass, then two, then three glasses at a meal. Now he can go and take his dinner in town, which he had not been able to do for three years; he regained his former vigor, is able to undertake anew his occupations, and has entirely given up his morphine habit."
We will conclude our quotations, already too numerous, with an article by Dr. Scaglia, published in 1877 in the Gazette des Hopitaux: "La Coca et ses propriétés thérapeutiques."
"In anæmia, connected with chronic pulmonary affections without fever, and in anæmia accompanied by gastralgia, Vin Mariani has an excellent effect. Its stimulating properties can also be admirably made use of in those intermediate states of impaired health which are not yet anæmia, but must in the end become so; physical or mental overwork, the cerebral weakness due to excess of work or pleasure; the exhaustion from which the inhabitants of large cities suffer through irregularities of diet and imperfect hygiene owing to their positions and surroundings.
"Vin Mariani is unquestionably of benefit to people of sedentary habits worn out by work, to convalescents who, from a prolonged confinement in bed, have lost muscular strength, to patients suffering from diabetes or Bright's disease, whose muscles have lost their elasticity and vigor.
"Let us add that the taste of Vin Mariani is exquisite, that it is in no way suggestive of drugs, and that its use is acceptable to the most fastidious."
Ordinary Dose—Two or three claret-glassfuls daily, half an hour before or immediately after eating.
Coca Grog.—By mixing a wineglassful of Vin Mariani with half a glassful of boiling water, sweetened to the taste, we get a grog of exquisite flavor, and capable of rendering the greatest services whenever an immediate effect is desired in severe cases of cold, attended by convulsive coughing. (As prescribed by Dr. Libermann, Dr. Cyrus Edson and others, recorded in the medical journals during the grip epidemics.)