September i, 1884.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



175 



it gives strength and courage to the Indians ; for 

 one sees the effects of it .in enabling them to march 

 for several days upon nothing but a handful of beans. " 



Linn.kus, the celebrated naturalist, says that coca 

 possesses " the penetrating aroma of vegetable 

 stimulants, the binding and strengthening virtue of 

 astringents, the antispasmodic qualities of bitters and 

 the nutritious mucilage or gum of analeptics or the 

 food-plants." " This leaf," he adds, " powerfully 

 exerts its activity on every part of the animal 

 economy : Olido in nerves, sapido in Jibras, utroque 

 injhddo." 



The doctor Unanue, of Lima, regards it as the 

 tonic par excellence (architonico). He recommends 

 it for " nervoses stomacales" and for convalescents, as 

 conducive to quick recovery after exhausting diseases. 



Father Don Antonio Julio wrote : — "This plant is 

 a preservative against many sicknesses, restores lost 

 strength, and is a leugthener of human life. It 

 is a pity that so many poor families are 

 without this preservative from hunger and thirst ; 

 that so many employees and labourers have to do 

 without this valuable support ; that so many young 

 and old men, devoted to the ungrateful task of 

 study or of writing should not enjoy the benefits 

 derivable from this plant, which lessens the exhaustion 

 of the vital powers, the debility of brain, and the 

 feebleness of digestion which are the inevitable 

 results of continuous study." 



Wkkjiell considers coca as an excitant the slow and 

 sustained action of which differs from that of alcohol. 



According to Boeehaave "the saliva charged with 

 all the bitter and mucilaginous particles of coca 

 brings to the stomach, besides vital invigoratiou, real 

 nourishment which, digested and converted into a 

 nutritive and abundant chyle, is introduced into the 

 circulating current and is changed in to the human 

 Bubstauce according to fixed laws." 



Manuel Fuentes of Lima, from whom we borrow the 

 above quotation, adds : — " However it may be with 

 these explanations, the real fact is that, the human 

 body by sustained use of coca acquires an athletic 

 constitution capable of standing the hardest work in 

 the midst of privations and of misery and in inclem- 

 ent weather." 



The light which experience and analysis give, reveal 

 in coca the most tonic plant in the vegetable kingdom. 

 This most precious shrub combines in itstlf alone 

 the different virtues which are found in the large 

 number of vegetables comprized under the head of 

 tonic plants." 



Littue and Ch. Bonin {Diclionnaire de Medecine, de 

 Chirurgie et de Pharmacie): — "Coca leaves four centi- 

 metres long and 27 millimetres wide, are the object of a 

 considerable trade. Masticated in small quantities 

 by runners, travellers and miners, they enable one to 

 pass one or two days without taking solid or liquid 

 food ; they allay hunger and thirst and sustain the 

 strength. Masticated in larger quantities, they act 

 like wine; mixed with tobacco and chewed, they have 

 an effect similar to that of hashish," 



Doctor Scuwalk gives an observation on pneumonia 

 very distinctly marked which was cured by some in- 

 fusion of coca': — "The experiments which I myself have 

 since made have boen crowned with success, whether 

 in several cases of sharp primitive pueumonia or in 

 others of consecutive pneumonia. Coca deserves, ac- 

 cording to my opinion, the praises which the historians 

 of Peru have for centuries bestowed upon it. This 

 wonderful plant appeases hunger and thirst and 

 diminishes oik's need of sleep. It is in a word a 

 powerful restorative of the vital forces, and is called 

 to play an important part in the cure of the digestive 

 and respiratory organs." 



Doctor Ctr. Gazeau (These pour le Doetorat, Paris, 

 IS70) ; — " YVehave thus summed up the physiological, 



action of coca : upon the stomach, gentle excitement, 

 ammthesia and probable increased secretion of the 

 gastric juice ; upon the intestines, increase of the in- 

 testinal secretions, &c. These multiple physiological 

 activities upon the digestive tube may be summed up 

 in a specific action in the numerous functional dis- 

 turbances, so various and so little understood of the 

 vital organs." 



The same author quotes a large number of observ- 

 ations on this subject in which coca has never failed 

 to cause "an admirable, often even a marvellous action," 

 and he concludes : — " It seems to me useless to quote 

 other facts ; these suffice to authorize the wide gener- 

 alization, coca is the special medicine for diseases of 

 the digestive tube." 



Profes-or 0. Eeveil finished bis article on coca by 

 saying : — " There is still much to be done in the 

 clinical and physiological study of coca. We know that 

 it acts on the muscular, nervous and sensitive system. 

 This substance is destined some day to occupy an 

 important rank in therapeutics." 



The physiological action of coca has been well de- 

 scribed by Prof. See, who rauks it with the die- 

 assimilauts. 



Dr. Cur. Fauvel prescribes it daily with much suc- 

 cess in his Clinique de Laryngoscopie under the form 

 of " Vin Toniqtte a la Coca de Mariani," and prefers 

 it to quinine in many diseases, principally in affections 

 of the respiratory passages and the vocal organ. 



We one day asked Dr. Fauvel what made him think of 

 using coca for diseases of the throats when no one else 

 in France had thought of this use. " It is quite a little 

 history in itself," replied the doctor. " Fully twenty 

 years ago, I bad an old friend, then vicar of Bondy, 

 the learned able Pullez, who was always talking to me 

 of the marvellous effects of coca in cases of weakness 

 of voice, and affirmed, that, whenever he had to preach 

 a long sermon, he took coca for two days and thus 

 obtained a sonorous and considerable volume of voice. 

 After these persistent affirmations, Dr, Fauvel ventured 

 on trying coca with patients afliicted with feeble voice 

 and was soon convinced that his excellent friend had 

 made him discover a medicine which cau justly be 

 called the tightener of the vocal cords. 



Professor Gubler {Commcntaire Tlierapeutique du 

 Codex, art. Coca) thinks that, like tea, caffeine and theo- 

 bromine, coca gives to the nervous system the strength 

 with which it is charged, acting as a battery, with 

 this difference that it gives it up slowly and not all of 

 a sudden. 



A. Dickembre says (Dktionnaire Encyclopidique des 

 Sciences Medicates, art. Coca): — " The theory of the 

 batteries imagined by M. Gubler agrees so exactly 

 with the phenomena observed that Mautegazza, without 

 generalizing or pretending to make any theory, 

 confining himself to descriptions of what he had seen : 

 'Under the influence of coca, it seems that, a new 

 strength is gradually introduced into our organism, as 

 water into a sponge. ' " • 



Extracts of Coca, 



In 1774, Dr. Unanu^ (of Lima) fir.st studied the 

 constituent principles of the coca leaf. He treated 

 21 it grams of fresh coca leaves with boiling water, and 

 obtained 71 gr. GO cent, of a gummy dark green extract 

 of a pleasant odour reminding one of the smell of the 

 leaf, and of a bitter taste which left on the tongue a 

 sharp and durable impression. 



We wished to verify the experiments of Dr. Unauutj, 



and, although we had to operate on dry leaves, the 



quantity of coca (250 gr.) gave us 70 gr. 25 cent. 



of gummy extracts, that is to say 4 gr. (id cent, more 



than in the experiment of the Lima doctor. 



Treated with boiling water by alcohol at 21°, 56 3 and 

 05' and finally by ether, the coca leaf reduced to 



