“Such assertions, in the presence of reports so opposite as those I have cited, may well cause some astonishment. Individuals are, however, not wanting, who give us to understand that, if this traveller had not trusted too implicitly to the accounts of ill-informed persons, he had erred, at least, in too much generalising exceptional facts. For my part, I may say, that the researches that I have been able to make on the subject, in localities where the Coca is most in use, have shown me that the mastication of the leaf does sometimes produce evil consequences among Europeans who have not accustomed themselves to it from youth; and, in two or three cases, I have thought I could attribute to the abuse of this practice a peculiar aberration of the intellectual faculties indicated by hallucinations. But, in the countries which I have visited, on no occasion have I seen the results to reach the point instanced by M. Pöppig.
“Let us now examine what are the beneficial properties attributable to Coca. Of these the most remarkable is undeniably its reputed power of sustaining the strength in the absence of any other nutriment. The facts on which this opinion rests have been asserted by so many credible persons, that scepticism must be carried very far to throw over it a doubt; it appears to me, however, that opinions may vary according to the interpretation of the same facts.
“One of two things is certain, either 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, I am far from wishing to deny it; analysis, indeed, shows the existence in the leaf, and especially in its active principle, of a notable quantity of nitrogen together with assimilable carbonised products; but the proportion of these substances is so small compared with the total mass of the leaf, and especially with the quantity of it that the Indian consumes in a given time, that they can hardly be taken into consideration. Moreover, I can affirm very positively that Coca, as it is taken habitually, does not satiate hunger. This is a fact of which I have convinced myself by daily experience. The Indians who accompanied me on my journey chewed Coca during the whole day; but, evening arrived, they filled their stomachs like fasting men, and I am certain I have seen one devour as much food at a single meal as I should have consumed during 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. The use of Coca assists, it may be, to support the abstinence; but we must have cases far more conclusive than those which I have witnessed to convince me that it plays a part more important than that which I attribute to it. I will, however, add to what I have before said of the llipta, that this alkaline substance may also contribute, by its direct influence on the secretions of the stomach, to allay the requirements of that organ.
“The action of Coca is then, in my opinion, confined to an excitement, but an excitement of a peculiar kind, which I consider as very different from that resulting from the use of most of the ordinary excitants, and especially of alcohol. Brandy gives strength, as all know; but who does not know also that the ‘gift’ is but a loan made out at the expense of strength reserved for the future? The action of this agent, though powerful, is transient. The stimulus produced by mastication of the leaf of the Erythroxylon is, on the contrary, slow and sustained, characters which it owes, doubtless, in great part to the manner of its employment, since an infusion of Coca acts very differently from the leaf taken in the ordinary way. It will be said that tea and coffee, whose effects appear to have more analogy with those of Coca, would perhaps produce analogous results if taken in the same manner. I do not believe such would be the case. Tea and coffee (coffee in particular) act specially on the brain, on which they produce an antisoporific effect, but too well known to those who are not in their habitual use. But Coca, while producing a little of this effect, when taken in large doses, as I have often experienced in my own person, does not act perceptibly upon the brain in small doses. To account for the ordinary effects of the leaf, one must then suppose that its action, instead of being localised, as in the case of tea and coffee, is diffused, and bears upon the nervous system generally, producing upon it a sustained stimulus, well suited to impart to those who are under its influence that support which has been erroneously attributed to peculiar nutritive properties.
“Finally, I think that in the fidelity of the Indian to the use of Coca, as with some smokers and their pipes, much is due to habit; and it is, I think, essential not to lose sight of the fact, that the force of habit must have an influence all the more powerful, since the habit in question is almost the only one he retains of past times, and that now, as then, he attaches to the use of the Coca-leaf superstitious ideas, which, to his imagination, must at least treble the greatness of the benefits he derives from it. Lastly, that in the mastication of Coca he finds the sole distraction that breaks the incomparable monotony of his existence.”
Dr. Weddell supposes that the word Coca comes from the Aymara (Indian) Khoka, signifying the tree or plant, just as the shrub producing Paraguay Tea (Ilex Paraguayensis) is called la Yerba, i.e., the plant. Botanical specimens were first sent by Joseph de Jussieu to his brother in 1750; these Antoine Laurent de Jussieu referred to the genus Erythroxylon, and finally they served as types for Lamarck to give the plant his designation, Erythroxylon Coca, in the Encyclopédie Méthodique.
CHAPTER VI.
SCHERZER, FUENTES, AND OTHERS, ON COCA.
Carl Scherzer, who brought the supplies to Europe from which Niemann and Lossen, under Wöhler, first isolated Cocaine, narrates the following:[16]—
“A Scotchman named Campbell, who was settled as a merchant at Tacna in Bolivia, and with whom I travelled to Europe from Lima, informed me that a few years before, being engaged upon matters of urgent business, he had performed in one day a distance of 90 English miles on mule-back, and throughout that long distance had been accompanied by an Aymara Indian, who kept up easily with the mule, without other refreshment than a few grains of roasted maize and Coca leaves, which, mingled with undissolved chalk (? slaked lime), he chewed incessantly. On reaching the station where he had to pass the night, Mr. Campbell, though mounted on an excellent animal, found himself greatly fatigued; the guide, on the other hand, after he had stood on his head for a few minutes,[17] and had drunk a glass of brandy, set off without further delay on his homeward journey!