Charles Fauvel first recognized the virtues of Coca in the tingling of follicular angina and the laryngeal pains of tuberculous subjects. In those cases he specifies Mariani's extract of Coca leaves in preference to solutions of Cocaine, which sometimes give rise to symptoms of poisoning.
Dr. Rouquette[17] relates a case of tubercular laryngitis in which symptoms of poisoning showed themselves as early as the third day; the parts had been painted twice a day with a five-per-cent solution of Cocaine.
Dr. Paul Legendre has quite recently mentioned anew the danger that may result from a too free use of Cocaine[18]. The case was that of an interne of the hospitals attacked with diphtheria who, in order that he might the better bear the spraying with caustics, had his throat painted with a solution of Cocaine. Toward the seventh day he experienced very grave symptoms of poisoning, and the painting had to be suspended.
It is better, in cases of this sort, to prescribe extract of Coca, which answers the same purposes without the attendant danger of Cocaine.
One of the greatest triumphs of extract of Coca is assuredly its action in dysphagia and in the vomiting of consumptives, as also in the vomiting of pregnancy. The first two complications are of the gravest kind, for they condemn to starvation patients whose only chance of safety lies in the activity of the digestive organs (Ch. Fauvel and Coupard).
DISEASES OF THE STOMACH.
Authors who have given attention to Coca speak very highly of its employment in gastralgia and tardy and laborious digestion.
Demarle says on this subject: "Personally, I have found the use of Coca, either before or after eating, excellent for gastrodynia and pyrosis, to which I am subject; hardly have I swallowed the first bit of saliva when the whole unpleasant feeling disappears."
Mantegazza speaks of its use in the same strain. The cephalic congestion which accompanies his digestion is relieved; he can work after eating without feeling any uneasiness.
Dr. Ch. Gazeau (Thèse pour le Doctorat, Paris, 1870, Parent, édit., pp. 61 et seq.) thus sums up the physiological action of Coca: "On the stomach, slight excitation, anæsthesia, and probably an increase of the secretion of gastric juice; on the intestines, an increase of the intestinal secretions, etc. These manifold physiological effects upon the digestive tube unite in a specific action, so to speak, in the numerous functional troubles, so varied and so ill-understood, of the organs that compose it."