January i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



5i5 



being improved liy any species of tree. The broad leaves 

 of the Ash. Maple, and Sycamore, decay more quickly than 

 those of the Oak and Beech, and these latter more rapidly 

 than the needle-shaped leaves of the various Pine tribes. 

 If the gardener desires to hasten the decomposition of 

 fallen leaves for the purposes of compost, soils, or manures, 

 it is necessary to add to them lime, wood-ashes. &c, as 

 well as earth, pond or ditch-mud, and vegetable refuse 

 generally. They will then be found to form an exceed- 

 ingly useful material for potting purposes. If a bushel of 

 common salt (to six bushels of lime) be dissolved in water 

 and the brine be used to slake the lime, the action will 

 be much more rapid, and a few weeks will suffice to set 

 up a decomposition, when the heap may be overhauled, 

 and the compost will be ready in a few weeks more. In- 

 stead of salt, muriate of potash may be advantageously 

 used. It will probably act as well in the compost, and 

 will also supply indispensable potash to the plants. — J. J. 

 W. — Gardeners 1 Chronicle. 



EKYTHROXYLON COCA.* 

 11 v d«. son inn. 



The condition of the principal m rkets of the world for 

 this drug for the past six months has been exceptionally 

 bad. That is, whether good coca was sought for in the 

 ports of Central and South America, or in London, Hamburg 

 or new York, the search, even without limitation in price, 

 was almost invariably unsuccessful. Not that the drug, 

 independent of quality, was scarce, for hundreds of bales 

 were accessible at all times, but the quality was so poor 

 as to be quite unfit for use. The samples, instead of being 

 green and fragrant, were brown and odourless, or musty 

 and disagreeable, at once condemning the lots tbey represent- 

 ed, to the most casual observation, and yet the price was 

 high enough to have represented a good article. The best 

 that could be done, by the most careful buyers, was to 

 accept occasional parcels, the best of which were of very 

 inferior quality, and therefore unfit for medicinal uses, 

 and these at very high prices. Coca is well known to be 

 a very sensitive and perishable drug, only fit for its some- 

 what equivocal uses when fresh and green, and well cared 

 for in packing and transportation. Yery much like tea in 

 this and other respects, it should be packed and transported 

 with the same care and pains, in leaded chests, or in some 

 equivalent package. It is very well known that tea if 

 managed, transported, handled and sold as coca is, would 

 be nearly or quite worthless, and therefore coca managed 

 as the great mass of it is, must be nearly all of it com- 

 paratively worthless. It used as tea is, this would probably 

 soon appear but when used as a medicine which has been 

 highly extolled and well advertised, itseems to go on equally 

 well whether of good or bad quality. It is pretty safe to 

 say that nineteen-twentieths of the coca seen in the United 

 States market within the past two years must lie almost 

 inert and valueless, yet all is sold and used, and its reputation 

 as a therapeutic agent is pretty well kept up. At least 

 many thousands of pounds of the brown ill-smelling leaf, 

 and of preparations made from it are aunuaUy sold. And 

 worse than this, considerable quantities of a handsome look- 

 ing green leaf, well put up and well taken care of, have 

 been sold and used as coca, when wanting in nearly all 

 its characteristics. 



The writer for more than a year past has seen but one 

 or two small lots of moderately good coca, and in common 

 with other buyers has been obliged to buy the best that 

 could be found to keep up his supply of the fluid extract. 

 Almost every purchase has been made on mental protest, 

 and he has been ashamed of every pound of fluid extract 

 sent out, from the knowledge that it was of poor quality ; 

 and there seems to be no more prospect of a supply of 

 better quality than there was this time last year, because 

 so long as an inferior quality sells in such enormous quantities 

 at good prices the demands of trade are satisfied. 



Under this condition of the markets the writer has finally 

 decided to give up making a fluid extract of coca, and 

 has left it off his list, adopting a fluid extract of tea in id, 

 as a superior substitute, for those who may choose to use 

 it, and regrets that this course was not taken a year ago. 



The character of coca as a therapeutic agent is not very 



' From Ephemeris, July. 1SS4. 



good. The florid stories of a multitude of travellers and 

 writers, up to and includiugthe testimony of Dr. Mantegazza, 

 received a considerable support from so good an authority 

 as Sir Robert Christison, who reported very definite results 

 trom trials made upon himself, and upon several students 

 under his immediate control and observation; and his results 

 seem to have led to a very careful and exhaustive series 

 of observations at University College, London, by Mr. 

 Dowdeswell. This paper, published in The Lancet of April 

 29 and May 6, 1S76, pp. 631 and 664, is entitled "The Coca 

 Leaf, Observations on the Properties and Action of the 

 Leaf of the Coca Plant (Erythroxylon Coca), made in the 

 Physiological Laboratory of University College, by O. F. 

 Dowdeswell.B. a." The results of these investigations were 

 obsolutely negative, and at the close of the work the in- 

 vestigator says: ••Without asserting that it is positively 

 inert, it is concluded from these experiments that its action 

 is so slight as to preclude the idea of its having any value 

 either therapeutically or popularly; and it is the belief of 

 the writer, from observation upon the effect on the pulse. 

 etc., of tea, milk and water, and even plain water, hot, 

 tepid and cold, that such things may, at slightly different 

 temperatures, produce a more decided effect than even 

 large doses of coca, if taken at about the temperature of 

 the body." 



Conflicting and contradictory testimony from cimpetent 

 authority is not uncommon in therapeutics, ai.d the reasons 

 for it are well recognized in the impossibility of an equality 

 in the conditions and circumstances of the investigations, 

 and hence the general decision commonly reached is upon 

 the principal of averages. 



There can hardly be a reasonable doubt that coca, in 

 common with tea and coffee and other similar articles, has 

 a refreshing, recuperative, and sustaining effect upon human 

 beings, and when well cultivated, well cured, and well pre - 

 served, so as to reach its users of good quality and in good 

 condition, it is at least equal to good tea, and available 

 for important therapeutic uses. Mr. Dowdeswell supposed 

 that he used good coca, but it is very easy to see that 

 with any amount of care and pains he may have been 

 mistaken in this. Had he but used the same, parcel of 

 coca, that Sir Robert Christison did, the results of the 

 two observers would be absolutely incomprehensible; and 

 the results, in the absence of any testimony on that point, 

 simply prove that the two observers were using a different 

 article, though under the same name, and possibly with 

 the same care in selection. On Sir Robert Christison 's side 

 of the question there are many competent observers whose 

 testimony is spread over many years; while on Mr. Dowdes- 

 well's side there are fewer observers. But there b is been 

 no_ observer on either side whose researches have been any- 

 thing like so thorough, so extended or so accurate as those 

 of Mr. Dowdeswell. Indeed, no other account has been 

 met with wherein the modern methods of precision have 

 been applied to the question at all; the other testimony 

 being all rather loose and indefinite, often at second or 

 third hands, or from the narratives of more or less enthusiastic 

 travellers. But if Mr. Dowdeswell's results be accepted as 

 being conclusive, the annual consumption of 4(1,00(1,000 of 

 pounds of coca at a cost of 10.000,000 dollars, promotes 

 this substance to take rank among the large economic 

 blunders of the age.* 



The testimony in regard to the effects of ten, coffee, 

 Paraguay tea, Guarana and Kola nuts is all of a similar 

 character to that upon coca. Eac'i of these substances 

 seems to have come into , use independently, in widely 

 separated countries, to produce the same effects, namely, 

 to refresh, renew or sustain the physical and mental organism, 

 and it was a curious surprise to find, after they had all 

 been thus long u;el, tbat although each came from a 

 different natural order of plants, the same active principle, 

 namely, caffeine, could be extracted in different proportions 

 from all. It is now still more curious, however, to find 

 that for centuries another plant, namely, coca, yielding a 

 different principle, has been in use for similar purposes 

 the effects of which differ as little from those of tea, coffee} 

 etc., as these do amongthemselves. Yet cocaine ischemically 



* An excellent summing up of the character and history 

 of coca, from which some of the writer's information 

 has been obtained, will be found in ' Medicinal Plants,' by 

 Beutley and Trimen. vol. i. article 40. 



