"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.)
ELIXIR MARIANI.
The Elixir Mariani is more alcoholic, very agreeable to the taste, and three times as highly charged with the aromatic principles of the Coca leaf as the Vin Mariani; therefore it should be taken in doses of a liqueur glassful, in the morning upon rising, and after the two principal meals.