But to return to coca, the effects of which are described as of the most extraordinary nature, totally distinct from those produced by any other known plant in any part of the world. The exciting principle is said to be so volatile, that leaves, after being kept for twelve months, entirely lose their power, and are good for nothing.
Large heaps of the freshly-dried leaves, particularly while the warm rays of the sun are upon them, diffuse a very strong smell, resembling that of hay in which there is a quantity of melilot. The natives never permit strangers to sleep near them, as they would suffer violent headaches in consequence. When kept in small portions, and after a few months, the coca loses its scent, and becomes weak in proportion. The novice thinks that the grassy smell and fresh hue are as perceptible in the old state as when new. Without the use of lime, which always excoriates the mouth of a stranger, the natives declare that coca has not its true taste, a flavour which can only be detected after long use. It then tinges green the carefully swallowed saliva, and yields an infusion of the same colour. Of this infusion Pöppig made trial, and found that it had a flat, grass-like taste, but he experienced the full power of its stimulating principles. When taken in the evening, it was followed by great restlessness, loss of sleep, and generally uncomfortable sensations, while from its exhibition in the morning, a similar effect, though to a slight degree arose, accompanied with loss of appetite. Dr. Archibald Smith of Huanaco, when on one occasion unprovided with Chinese tea, made a trial of the coca as a substitute for it, but experienced such distressing sensations of nervous excitement, that he never ventured to use it again. It is not at all uncommonly used in this way; and the Indians have tea-parties or tertulias, for taking the infusion of the leaves, as well as for chewing them. Some affirm that in the coca-tea drinkings the effects are agreeably exhilarating. It is usual to say on such occasions, “Vamos à coquear y acullicar”——“Let us indulge in coca.”
Chewing the coca becomes quite a passion in those who indulge in it; and when the habit is once commenced, it is affirmed that it is never discontinued, and that an instance of a reclaimed coquero has never been known. To indulge in the enjoyment of this narcotic, the Peruvian will expose himself to the greatest dangers. As its stimulus is most fully developed when the body is exhausted with toil, or the mind with conversation, “the victim then hastens to some retreat in a gloomy native wood, and flinging himself under a tree, remains stretched out there, heedless of night or of storms, unprotected by covering or by fire, unconscious of the floods of rain, and of the tremendous winds which sweep the forest, and after yielding himself for two or three entire days to the occupation of chewing coca, returns home to his abode, with trembling limbs, and a pallid countenance, the miserable spectacle of unnatural enjoyment. Whoever accidentally meets the coquero under such circumstances, and by speaking interrupts the effects of this intoxication, is sure to draw upon himself the hatred of the half-maddened creature. The man who is once seized with the passion for this practice, if placed in circumstances which favour its indulgence, is a ruined being. Many instances were related to Pöppig while in Peru, where young people of the best families, by occasionally visiting the forests, had begun using the coca for the sake of passing the time away, and acquiring a relish for it, from that period been lost to civilization; as if seized by some malevolent instinct, they refused to return to their homes, and resisting the entreaties of their friends, who occasionally discovered the haunts of these unhappy fugitives, either retired to some distant solitude, or took the first opportunity of escaping, when they had been brought back to the towns.” So seductive becomes this habit, for we cannot doubt the veracity of these statements, that neither home, nor friends, nor family, nor society, nor fear, nor love, nor respect, nor any other creature, nor passion, would seem to have the power of winning them back from their monomania to a rational state of existence.
The virtues of the coca must be of the most astonishing character. The Indians, who are addicted to its use, are declared to be thereby enabled to withstand the toil of the mines amidst noxious metallic exhalations without rest, food, or protection from the climate. They run hundreds of leagues over deserts, and plains, and craggy mountains, sustained only by the coca and a little parched corn; and often too, acting as mules in bearing loads through passes where animals cannot go. Some have attributed this frugality and power of endurance to the effects of habit, and not to the use of coca; but the Indian is naturally voracious, and it is known that many Spaniards were unable to perform the Herculean tasks of the Peruvians until they habitually used the coca; moreover, it is affirmed, that without it, the Indians lose both their vigour and powers of endurance. During the siege of La Paz in 1781, when the Spaniards were constantly on the watch, and destitute of provisions, in the inclemencies of winter, they were saved, as chroniclers narrate, from disease and death by resorting to this plant. Some of those who deny many of the effects, said to be produced by its use, admit that the coca is useful medicinally as a preservative against the fevers which are consequent to a climate like that of Peru.
Hallucinations result from the use of the coca as from that of the narcotic hemp, but not, as it would appear, to the same extent. The inordinate use of this plant, as indeed of all the narcotics, seems to be attended with fearful results. One description with which we are acquainted, gives details of no very desirable character. It affirms that the abuse speedily occasions bodily disease, and detriment to the moral powers, but that still the custom may be persevered in for many years, especially if frequently intermitted, and the coquero sometimes attains the age of fifty with comparatively few complaints. But the oftener the orgies are celebrated, especially in a warm and moist climate, the sooner are their destructive effects made evident. For this reason, the natives of the cold and dry districts of the Andes are more addicted to the consumption of coca than those of the close forests, where undoubtedly other stimulants do but take its place. Weakness in the digestive organs, which, like most incurable complaints, increases continually in a greater or less degree, first attacks the unfortunate coquero. This complaint, which is called “opilacion,” may be trifling at the beginning, but soon attains an alarming height. Then come bilious obstructions, attended with all those thousand painful symptoms which are so much aggravated by a tropical climate, jaundice and derangement of the nervous system follow, along with pains in the head, and such a prostration of strength, that the patient speedily loses all appetite. The whites of the eyes assume a leaden colour, and a total inability to sleep ensues, which aggravates the mental depression of the unhappy individual, who, spite of all his ills, cannot relinquish the use of the herb, to which he owes his suffering, but craves brandy in addition. The appetite becomes quite irregular, sometimes failing altogether, and sometimes assuming a wolfish voracity, especially for animal food. Thus do years of misery drag on, succeeded at length by a painful death.
This property of dispelling sleep, as a result of the inordinate use of coca, was noticed by Weddell, as the result also of the moderate indulgence, by way of experiment, in an infusion of the leaves, and which led him to suppose that the chemical principle of tea, called theine, would be found present in them. Professor Frémy analyzed them accordingly, but found no such principle present, although an active bitter principle was found, peculiar to this plant, the full properties of which are still unascertained.
Coca has the reputed power of sustaining strength in the absence of any other nutriment. The Indians declare, that when using it they feel neither the pains of hunger nor of thirst, that they are enabled to perform the most laborious operations with little or no food, insensible either to cold or weariness; that by its use they can ascend the steep passes of the Andes, carrying with them heavy loads, and without lassitude or loss of breath. When Tschuddi was in the Puna, he drank always before going out to hunt, a strong infusion of coca-leaves. Then, he states, he could during the whole day climb the heights, and follow the wild animals without experiencing any greater difficulty of breathing than he would have felt in similar movements along the coast. One account states, that a native, who was employed in laborious digging for five days and nights, tasted no food during that period, and only slept two hours each night. He regularly chewed the coca-leaves, to the extent of about half an ounce every two or three hours, and kept a quid of them constantly in his mouth. The work being finished, he went a two days’ journey of twenty-three leagues across the level heights, keeping pace with a mule, and only halting to replenish his quid. At the end of all this labour, he was willing to engage for the performance of as much more without food, but with a plentiful allowance of coca. This man was sixty-two years of age, and was never known to have been ill in his life. For this reason, that it appears to act as a substitute for food, several learned and ingenious authors have lamented that it has not been introduced into countries like our own, where it would be a boon so valuable to the poor in times of scarcity and distress.
What says science concerning this extraordinary power? One of two things is certain: either that the coca contains some nutritive principle which directly sustains the strength, or it does not contain it, and, therefore, simply deceives hunger while acting on the system as an excitement. As to the existence of a nutritive principle in coca, although it cannot positively be denied, on account of the quantity of nitrogen, together with assimilable carbonized products, which have been found to exist in the leaf; yet their proportion is so small compared with the mass, and especially with the quantity that a coquero consumes at once, that they can scarcely be taken into consideration. Moreover, it has also been affirmed that coca, as it is habitually taken, does not satiate hunger. The Indians who accompany travellers, will chew the leaves during the day, but, on the arrival of evening, they will fill their stomachs like fasting men, devouring, at a single meal, enough to satisfy an ordinary man for two days. The Indian of the Cordillera is like the vulture of his mountains, when provisions abound, he gorges himself greedily, when they are scarce, his robust nature enables him to content himself with very little. This is the evidence—what is the verdict? That the use of the coca assists, perhaps, to support the abstinence; but that its action is confined to an excitement of a peculiar kind, very different from that of the ordinary excitants, and especially alcohol. Brandy gives strength, but that strength is only a loan, at the expense of strength reserved for the future. The stimulus produced by coca is slow and sustained, in part owing to the manner of its employment, as the infusion acts differently from the leaf as taken in the ordinary way. Tea and coffee act specially on the brain, on which they produce an anti-soporific effect; but while coca produces a little of this effect when taken in large doses, it does not act perceptibly upon the brain in small doses. To account for the ordinary effects of the leaf, one must suppose that its action, instead of being localized, as in the case of tea and coffee, is diffused, and bears upon the nervous system generally, producing a sustained stimulus, calculated to impart to those under its influence, that support which has been attributed erroneously to peculiar nutritive properties.
Superstition and prejudice combined have, however, ennobled this plant in the mind of the Peruvian, and he looks upon it as a true “gift of God.” Its influences and effects are magnified in his own mind into something miraculous, and, indeed, miraculous powers have been attributed to it, for in what other light can we regard the belief current amongst them, that if the miner throws the masticated leaves upon the hard and impenetrable veins of metal, the ore will thereby become softened and be more easily worked? or that the leaves when placed in the mouth of a dead person, ensures it a more favourable reception into the world of spirits? or that when a mummy is met with disentombed from its narrow home, the presentation of a few leaves propitiates its disengaged spirit, and is accepted as a pious offering?
Much of the fidelity of the Indian to his coca, as with the smoker to his pipe of tobacco, is due to habit, and in this case the influence of the habit is more powerful, inasmuch as it has been handed down through a long line of ancestors, and is almost the only one which has been preserved. Finally, he finds in its use a distraction, and the only one, which breaks the monotony of his existence. The Peruvian Indians are of a gloomy temperament, and subject to fits of melancholy. When not engaged in out-door work, they will sit in their huts chewing coca and brooding gloomily over their own thoughts; indeed, the combined testimony of travellers establish the fact, that there is in their features an expression of concentrated melancholy, which seems to speak of an undefined but constant suffering; we cannot be astonished at finding such people seeking for comfort in the best substitute for opium that their country will furnish.