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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [February 2, 1885. 



one is found that is so very definite and so very important 

 in its results, and the future utility of which is so quickly 

 and so easily established, and hence the importance of a 

 prompt supply of the substance if possible. The great 

 probability that only small quantities of so rare and costly 

 an alkaloid would be either on hand, or in process of 

 making in Europe, and that the demand there would exhaust 

 that and keep it exhausted for some time to come, leav- 

 ing but little available for the United States, while the 

 demand would be much greater in the United States than 

 in Europe— induced the writer to try to bridge over the 

 difficulty temporarily, by trying to learn how to make it in 

 6mall quantities for further investigation of its uses. It 

 was fully recognized that, like many other similar articles, 

 it cannot be made permanently in the United States be- 

 cause of the enormous tax there ou alcohol and ether, 

 these appearing to be the chief solvents used in making it, 

 unless some cheaper solvents can be found for its extraction 

 and purification. Another difficulty to be met was that .of 

 getting good coca leaves to make it from. In assaying 

 coca leaves the best results the writer has ever obtained 

 were about '26 per cent, of cocaine, and this is in accord- 

 ance with other published assays, while upon a manufactur- 

 ing scale the best results published seem to have been 

 about "2 per cent, of the hydrochlorate, or 2 grams per 

 kilogram, and this from the best leaves. 



The Doctor then proceeds to detail his by the means 

 successful experiments to manufacture no article. 

 He states :— . 



Merck's hydrochlorate of cocaine came in the torm ot a 

 damp, amorphous, granular powder of a rather dusky 

 white colour,— several shades off from being colourless. It 

 has a peculiar ethereal odour, and a mildly bitter taste, 

 the taste being very promptly succeeded by a benumbing 

 seusation. . 



Abundant experience has shown that in all ordinary 

 cases of eye operations the instillation of two drops 

 intothe eye, and after waiting ten minutes, three drops 

 more, will in ten minutes after the second instillation, give 

 an ancesthesia which will continue complete for about ten 

 minutes, and pass off in about twenty minutes, leaving no 

 irritation or other bad effects. Doubtless weaker solutions 

 will he required for therapeutic purposes, but these can be 

 easily made extemporaneously from the stronger one. Use 

 has been made of both a 2 per cent, and 1 per cent, sol- 

 ution in painful conditions of the eye with entire rehef , but 

 the applications have to be frequently renewed, as the 

 effects pass away rather rapidly. Such solutions are of 

 course very easily made from a 4 per cent, solution as 

 needed, without any necessity for keeping more than the 

 one stock solution. 



The effects of cocaine as a local aiuesthetic are woudertul, 

 and it is still more wonderful that these effects should not 

 have been before discovered. There have been several in- 

 dependent investigations of its physiological and therapeutic 

 effects. It has often been dropped in the eye, and its my- 

 driatic effect was well-known. It had also been used for 

 spraying the fauces in laryngology to lessen the sensitive- 

 ness to the use of instruments, and its discoverer, Niemann, 

 and many since have noticed its benumbing effects upon the 

 tongue; but it remained for Roller to discover its effects as 

 a local anesthetic, and thus within a week's time to raise it 

 from an ob-cure position in the list of useless alkaloids to 

 an importance and utility hardly exceeded m the materia 

 medica. It had been repeatedly given both internally and 

 hvpodermically, and found to require large doses, often re- 

 peated, to produce any appreciable effect. One grain of it 

 will give complete anesthesia of an eye tor ten or fifteen 

 minutes, fifty times, and yet the si me quantity taken into 

 the stomach has hardly given an appreciable effect, and 

 this quantity represents about WO grains of good coca. 

 Thus there seems to be very little relation discoverable at 

 present between its general effect on the economy and its 

 local effect. As an agent correctly and properly classed 

 with tea, coffee, guarana, etc., as a nervous stimulant it was 

 so indefinite in effect— at least when of poor quality- as 

 to lead some close observers to doubt or deny its stimulant 

 action whan now it suddenly comes into view m the op- 

 posite 'role of the most powerful nervous sedative ever 

 known short of absolute destruction of issue. The action of 

 heat or of chemical cauteries which destroy the tissues, do 

 not more completely obliterate sensation than this agent, 

 and yet it does not appear to interfere with vitality at all, 



does not irritato at all either primarily or secondarily, and 

 its profound action appears to be followed by no hurtful 

 reaction. With such a character so suddenly acquired, it 

 seems practically to have sprung into existence fully armed 

 for a great amount of future good iu the art of medicine. 

 Already it has been applied to many purposes beside those 

 of ophthalmology, and extravagant and improbable state- 

 ments iu regard to its effects are circulated, audit has also, 

 doubtless, been often misapplied, but it is far too well tried 

 to be classed with the doubtful novelties of the time, or 

 have an uncertain importance in the future. The difficulty 

 now is to get it for application. 



Our readers will thus see that the same romance 

 attends the discovery of the really valuable property 

 of this drug " worth its weight in gold," as sur- 

 rounded the gold discoveries in California and Aus- 

 tralia, and we are justified in concluding that the 

 earth we tread on and all that it produces teem 

 with important secrets which when discovered will 

 fubsirve the health and well being of man. To 

 quota; again : — 



Another curious point is its differing activity upon 

 different persi ins. A piece of paper J of an inch square, 

 wetted with a 4 per cent, solution and laid upon the 

 tongue, will give a pretty distinct sensation of the _ size 

 and even the form of the insensitive or numb spot within 

 one minute on some persons, while in others it will take 

 twice and three times that length of time, and give a 

 more faint impression, while in one case met with _ it 

 gave ro impression at all. Bibulous paper wetted with 

 the solution and dried may be carried in the pocket, cert- 

 ainly for some days, and probably for an indefinite period, 

 and when cut and laid upon the moist tongue will promptly 

 produce the characteristic effect. 



The opportunities for an extensive use of the agent are 

 very numerous and important. Its principal effects so far 

 have been for the most part upon mucous membranes, or 

 upon surfaces denuded of cuticle, and it is not known how 

 far it will affect unbroken skin or the tissues beneath. 

 Some superficial neuralgias are said to have been benefited 

 by the application of the solution, and upon this thewriter 

 has suggested the use of the paper wetted with the 

 solution and then dried — the paper to be cut of the size of 

 the superficial pain to be wetted and applied to the part, 

 and then to he covered with oiled silk a little larger than 

 the paper. The results of such applications have not yet 

 been heard from. 



A far better preparation for such uses would be, however, 

 an oleate of cocaine. The alkaloid unites directly with 

 oleic acid and forms a true salt, and this salt is a principal 

 object the writer has in view if he should finally succeed 

 in making the alkaloid. The facility with which these 

 oleates are absorbed by sound skin, and the depth to which 

 they probably penetrate before being too much diluted by 

 the circulating fluids, give, theoretically, great promise for 

 the use of such a preparation for the relief of local pain. 



In short there can hardly be imagined a larger field of 

 usefulness than is now open for investigation by means of 

 this new agent, and although there will be many dis i ppoint- 

 ments and Very much over-zealous enthusiasm, it is fortunate 

 that but little harm can be done with it beyond the waste 

 of so scarce and valuable a substance, as there has been no 

 case yet reported in which any poisonous or bad effects 

 have resulted from its use even when internally ad- 

 ministered in grain doses. 



The close relationship, if not identity, in physiological 

 effects and popular usage of coca with tea and coffee, as 

 a nervous stimulant, has led to the rational inference that 

 calf eine might also prove to be a sedative or ana sthet c 

 like cocaine, and some trials of caffeine have been published 

 as unsatisfactory. But all the trials published, as well as 

 those heard of from private sources, have not 1 een so 

 conducted as to be conclusive. When compared as they 

 exist in coca and in tea, cocaine is about eight times 

 stronger than caffeine, and therefore it might be expected 

 that a 32 per cent, solution of caffeine would be required 

 to do what a 4 per cent solution of cocaine would do, and 

 such a solution is at present impracticable. Besides, it is 

 reported that solutions of caffeine are irritant to the eye. _ 



Neuralgia, although not so fatal as diphtheria, is 

 much more general' and renders many an existence 

 almost unbearable. If. therefore, as seems probable, 



