The uses of the Coca leaf in Bolivia and Peru have been described by many travellers, who have seen it chewed, as has been before mentioned. From two to eight or twelve drachms or more is used daily, in conjunction with the ashes of the quinoa plant or with lime, as a remedy for, or preventive against, the effects of extraordinary physical exertion, to relieve the difficulty of respiration in ascending mountains, and to appease hunger, thirst, and fatigue. The leaves contain the crystalline alkaloid, Cocaine (See page 54). They are said to be most active when freshly dried, and are much used by the native Indians, miners, travellers, and others. The benumbing effect on the tongue—dulling its sensibility—I find is much greater on chewing a fresh living leaf than that produced by a number of dried leaves. “The average duration,” says Markham,[27] “of Coca in a sound state on the coast is about five months, after which time it is said to lose flavour, and is rejected by the Indians as worthless.” It cannot be kept in stock for any length of time without suffering deterioration, unless it be either stored in air-tight cases in a cool and perfectly dry place, or kept in its original compressed packages; like hops detached from the “pocket,” it is said to lose its aroma. “The Peruvians,”[28] says Pöppig, “are of opinion that too much heat deprives even the best Coca of the active principle, that a warm climate will spoil the ‘Coca del Dia’ (that dried in one day) in ten months, whilst it continues good for a year and a half in the cold and dry districts of the Andes.”
CHAPTER X.
COCA IN COMMERCE.
The Hon. Richard Gibbs, U.S. minister to Bolivia, for some years resident at La Paz, gives a similar account to that of Weddell of the cultivation of Coca at the present day.[29] He says the consumers of Coca, both in Peru and in Bolivia, are the native races; the whites seldom use it, except as an infusion, and then the first water is thrown away as being too strong. The habitual consumers of it know nothing of toothache, and have their teeth in good condition to a great age. The Peruvian Government, he states, records and taxes a production of over 15,000,000 lbs., and the Bolivian Government about 7,000,000 lbs. annually; of the latter about 55 per cent. is consumed in Bolivia; the Argentine Republic and Chili about 15 per cent. each; Peru, 10 per cent.; while about 5 per cent. is exported to Europe and the United States. As “Coca is very easily damaged by the combined effects of heat and moisture, it is, therefore, always stored in dry, cool warehouses, and rarely handled or transported in damp weather or during the rainy season. The rainy season is from January to April, and, therefore, that stored on the west side of the coast range is alone available for export during the rainy season. When exported it is said that it usually starts in very good condition, and will reach its destination in the same condition if carried in a cool, dry place. Such transportation is always stipulated for on bills of lading, but the proper precautions are generally neglected, and hence the worthless condition in which it is often seen.”
Of the Coca imported into London, Liverpool, Havre, and Hamburg, some comes in tin-lined cases containing two tambores, but most of the large leaves (Bolivian variety) still arrive in rough canvas bales, generally lined with waterproof tarpaulin, and weighing from 120 to 150 lbs. each, two of which form a load for a mule for transportation through mountain passes or across the Andes for exportation. The bales usually contain three, or sometimes only two, tightly packed tambores, each weighing about 40 or 45 lbs. These latter have a canvas covering over a banana leaf lining. Other bales contain from six to nine smaller packages of about 16 to 20 lbs. each, wrapped round with a coarse woollen fabric and large dock-like leaves. The small leaves (North Peruvian) are usually either in closely-packed bales, containing 2 or 3 hundredweights, covered with canvas, then with tarpaulin, and again with canvas, or else in loosely packed canvas “beds” about 6 feet square by 1½ to 2 feet thick, containing brick-shaped packages, wrapped in pieces of banana leaf, weighing from 1 to 3 lbs. each, and measuring about 5 inches by 5 inches, and from 12 to 18 inches in length. The larger leaves at times arrive in bales containing similar packages.
Cowley (quoted p. 9) seems to have been gifted with second sight, and referred to the commerce of the present day; until a few years ago it was quite unknown in the London drug market: even yet no reliable statistics of our imports are obtainable.
CHAPTER XI.
USE OF COCA AS A RESTORATIVE AND BEVERAGE.
Notwithstanding the scepticism expressed in Weddell’s last sentence quoted (p. 23), and his attributing much of the effects said to be produced by Coca on the Indians to the force of habit, Markham (Op. cit.) regards it as the least injurious and the most soothing and invigorating of all the narcotics used by man, and Dr. Archibald Smith (“Peru as it is,” London: 1839) states, that Coca, when fresh and good, and used in moderate quantity, increases nervous energy, removes drowsiness, enlivens the spirits, and enables the Indian to bear cold, wet, great bodily exertion, and even want of food, to a surprising degree, with apparent ease and impunity; though it is said, if taken to excess, to occasion tremor in the limbs, and even a gloomy sort of mania. Such dire effects, he considers, must be of rare occurrence, since, after living for years in constant intercourse with persons accustomed to frequent Coca plantations, and with Indian yanacones or labourers, all of whom, whether old or young, masticated the favourite leaf, he never witnessed a single instance in which the chewer was affected with mania or tremor.
Whether, in Europe, it will ever share the field of favour with tea, coffee, and cocoa, and become a common beverage, is doubtful. It certainly is worthy of the attention of students who have a tendency to become drowsy. An infusion, 1 in 50 of distilled water, has a bitterish grass-like taste—much the same flavour as the selected tea supplied at the Chinese kiosk during the Fisheries Exhibition, 1884. It may be taken after meals as a refresher; it is not unpalatable; if sweetened, with milk or a slice of lemon added, or infused with tea, it may be taken as an ordinary cup of tea. The writer finds that a teacupful, taken hot, produces a slight diaphoretic action, quickened circulation, slight fulness in the head, buoyancy of spirits, and wakefulness; on one occasion, taken late, this was succeeded by rather restless sleep. It produces more cerebral action than tea or coffee. Johnson, in his “Chemistry of Common Life,” says we may dismiss those fears of the Coca leaf which old Spanish prejudices awakened, and which representations like those of Pöppig have tended to perpetuate in Europe. There is no good reason why it should not be tried among ourselves. That Coca dilated the pupils of the eye was noticed by Von Tschudi. He says, “After partaking of a strong infusion of Coca, or the mastication of a great quantity of it, the eye seems unable to bear light, and there is a marked distension of the pupil, and, when taken to the utmost excess, it never, like opium, causes a total alienation of the mental powers, or induces sleep; but, like opium, it excites the sensibility of the brain, and the repeated excitement occasioned by its intemperate use after a series of years wears out mental vigour and activity.”
Weddell and others, from the sleeplessness induced by an infusion of Coca, thought that it might contain Theine, but neither he nor Professor Frémy were able to isolate it, although he held that an active bitter principle, which it had not been possible for them to obtain in crystals, was contained in the leaves. The isolation, since, of Cocaine, an alkaloid possessing such curious properties, and the accounts of the use of Coca just narrated, show that the effects attributed to it are more than imagination and the “force of habit.” Whether it does more than deceive or lull hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and how it acts in these respects, are subjects still to be investigated. The effect which travellers have noticed it has on the respiration at high elevations cannot be imaginary. Under the influence of Coca, it has been said, it appears that a new force gradually introduces itself into our organism, as water into a sponge. Gubler thinks that as with tea, caffeine, and theobromine, Coca brings to the nervous system the strength with which it is charged in the manner of a fulminate, with the difference, that it only yields it slowly, not all at once.