Dr Tsclmdi on Coca, 30d 



all extravagant and visionary notions on the subject, I am 

 clearly of opinion that the moderate use of coca is not merely 

 innoxious, but that it may be even very conducive to health. 

 In support of this conclusion, I may refer to the numerous ex- 

 amples of longevity among the Indians who, almost from the 

 age of boyhood, have been in the habit of masticating coca 

 three times a-day, and who, in the course of their lives, have 

 consumed no less than two thousand seven hundred pounds, 

 yet, nevertheless, enjoy perfect health.* The food of the 

 Indians consists almost exclusively of vegetable substances, 

 especially roasted maize, and barley converted into flour by 

 crushing, which they eat without the admixture of any other 

 substance. The continued use of this farinaceous food occa- 

 sions severe obstructions, which the well-known aperient 

 qualities of the coca counteract, and many serious diseases are 

 thereby prevented. That the coca is in the highest degree 

 nutritious, is a fact beyond dispute. The incredible fatigues 

 endured by the Peruvian infantry, with very spare diet, but 

 with the regular use of coca ; the laborious toil of the Indian 

 miner, kept up under similar circumstances, throughout a long 

 series of years, certainly afford sufficient ground for attributing 

 to the coca leaves not a quality of mere temporary stimulus, 

 but a powerful nutritive principle. Of the great power of the 

 Indians in enduring fatigue, with no other sustenance than 

 coca, I may here mention an example. A cholo of Huari, 

 named Hatun Huamang, was employed by me in very labo- 

 rious digging. During the whole time he was in my service, 

 viz., five days and nights, he never tasted any food, and took 

 only two hours* sleep nightly. But at intervals of two and a 

 half or three hours, he regularly masticated about half an 

 ounce of coca leaves, and he kept an acullico continually in 



* I allude here to individuals (and such cases are by no means singulir) who have 

 attained the great age of one hundred and thirty. Supposing those Indians to 

 have begun to nnsticate coca at ten years old, and calculate their daily conaurop- 

 tion as a minimum at one ounce, the result is the consumption of twenty seven 

 hundredweight in one hundred and twenty years. 



