“It is a remarkable fact,” Dr. Hartwig tells us, “that the Indians, who regularly use coca, require but little food, and when the dose is augmented, are able to undergo the greatest fatigues without tasting almost anything else.” Professor Pöppig ascribes this astonishing endurance to a momentary excitement which must necessarily be succeeded by a corresponding collapse, and therefore considers the use of coca absolutely hurtful. Tschudi, however, is of opinion that its moderate consumption, far from being injurious, is, on the contrary, extremely wholesome, and cites the examples of several Indians who, never allowing a day to pass without chewing their coca, “attained the truly patriarchal age of one hundred and thirty years.”
The effects of excess in coca chewing are given by Hill in his Travels in Peru and Mexico. “The worst that can be said of the coca is its effects upon the health of such of the Indians as use it in excess. It then affects the breath, pales the lips and gums, and leaves a black mark on either side of the mouth. Moreover, after some time, the nerves of the consumer become affected, and a general langour is said to give plain evidence of the sad consequences of excess.”
Another writer gives a more depressing picture of the excessive consumer: “The confirmed coca chewer, or Coquero, is known at once by his uncertain step, his sallow complexion, his hollow, lack-lustre black-rimmed eyes, deeply sunk in the head, his trembling lips, his incoherent speech, and his stolid apathy. His character is irresolute, suspicious, and false; in the prime of life he has all the appearances of senility, and in later years sinks into complete idiocy. Avoiding the society of man, he seeks the dark forest, or some solitary ruin, and there, for days together, indulges in his pernicious habit. While under the influence of coca, his excited fancy riots in the strangest visions, now revelling in pictures of ideal beauty, and then haunted by dreadful apparitions. Secure from intrusion he crouches in an obscure corner, his eyes immovably fixed upon one spot; and the almost automatic motion of the hand raising the coca to the mouth, and its mechanical chewing, are the only signs of consciousness which he exhibits. Sometimes a deep groan escapes from his breast, most likely when the dismal solitude around him inspires his imagination with some terrific vision, which he is as little able to banish, as voluntarily to dismiss his dreams of ideal felicity. How the Coquero finally awakens from his trance, Tschudi was never able to ascertain, though most likely the complete exhaustion of his supply at length forces him to return to his miserable hut.”
The coca plant has from ancient times been the object of religious veneration by the Peruvian Indians, and although we have no historical record to tell us when the use of coca was introduced, or who first discovered its peculiar properties, we learn that when Pizarro destroyed Athualpa’s Empire, he found that the Incas employed coca in their religious ceremonies and sacrifices “either for fumigation, or as an offering to the gods. The priests chewed coca while performing their rites, and the favour of the invisible powers was only to be obtained by a present of these highly valued leaves. No work begun without coca could come to a happy termination, and divine honours were paid to the shrub itself.”
“After a period of more than three centuries, Christianity has not yet been able to eradicate these deeply-rooted superstitious feelings, and everywhere the traveller still meets with traces of the ancient belief in its mysterious powers. To the present day the miners of Cerro de Pasco throw chewed coca against the hard veins of the ore, and affirm that they can then be more easily worked—a custom transmitted to them from their forefathers who were fully persuaded that the Coyas, or subterranean divinities, rendered the mountains impenetrable, unless previously propitiated by an offering of coca. Even now the Indians put coca into the mouths of their dead, to ensure them a welcome on their passage to another world; and whenever they find one of their ancestral mummies, they never fail to offer it some of the leaves.”
It is believed that the superstitions regarding coca were looked upon with great disgust by the Spaniards, and that their efforts to stamp them out did more to keep alive the enmity borne them by the Indians than anything else.
The coca plant was first grown in Ceylon in 1870 when it was introduced from Kew. It was grown there as a result of a suggestion made by Mr. Joseph Stevenson who pointed out the commercial importance of the plant in view of the separation of the alkaloid cocaine by Nieman in 1859; but owing to the liability of the coca leaves to rapid deterioration after picking in unfavourable climatic conditions, this branch of commerce has not developed, and as yet no attempt has been made to extract the alkaloid in India, in commercial quantities at any rate.
But no matter what might be said about coca-chewing, there can be no two opinions about the dire and destructive effects of cocaine the alkaloid, and the results of indulgence in this drug are truly deplorable. It may be owing to something else in the coca leaves which ameliorates the full effect of the alkaloid; in fact it must be so, because I doubt whether even a confirmed cocaine consumer could find anything to say in its favour.
The first notice of cocaine consuming appears to be that of Col. J. Watson, who wrote in the New York Tribune about cocaine-sniffing. He writes: “I have visited some of the Negro bar-rooms in Atlanta, and the proprietors told me that the cocaine-habit which had been acquired by the Negroes, was simply driving them out of business. When the cocaine-habit fixes itself on a person, the desire for liquor is gone, the victim finding entire satisfaction in sniffing cocaine. By sniffing cocaine up the nostrils it reaches the brain quicker, and the effect is more lasting than if swallowed or administered by hypodermic injection. Persons addicted to the habit say they have tried the two latter ways, and that the effects are not the same, nor do they afford the same degree of satisfaction and pleasure as when sniffed. Unquestionably the drug rapidly affects the brain, and the result has been that, in the south, the asylums for the insane are overflowing with the unfortunate victims. After a person has habitually used the poison for a certain length of time, he becomes mentally irresponsible. No man can use it long and retain his normal mental condition. It is a brain-wrecker of the worst kind.”