PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
That coca was honored in their sacred ceremonies by the natives 
of the lands producing it, is evidenced by the following “recital” 
(451a), addressed to the sovereign: 
Oh, mighty lord, son of the Sun and of the Incas, thy fathers, thou who 
knoweth of the bounties which have been granted thy people, let me recall the 
blessings of the divine Coca which thy privileged subjects are permitted to enjoy 
through thy progenitors, the sun, the moon, the earth, and the boundless hills. 
A plant so regarded necessarily fell under the adverse criticism of 
the devoutly religious, early Spanish explorers, who naturally directed 
their efforts against everything that, in their opinion, constituted a part 
of heathen worship and diverted the natives from the true God. This 
is shown by the following quotation from Mortimer: 
In 1569 the Spanish audience at Lima, composed of bishops from all parts 
of South America, denounced Coca because, as they asserted, it was a pernicious 
leaf, the chewing of which the Indians supposed gave them strength, and was 
hence: “Un delusio del demonio.” 
In this connection the following quotation will indicate how dis- 
tasteful are the methods of the natives, even yet, to those whose first 
duty consists in suppressing such ceremonies as are therein described: 
When the period for departure (on a dangerous journey.—L.) actually ar- 
rives, the Indians throw Coca in the air, just as did the Incan priests of old, 
to propitiate the gods of the mountains, who, presumably, do not wish their do- 
mains invaded. 
The native Indian use of coca was exhibited where it was necessary 
for men to make the most exhausting physical effort, as the Indian 
“runners” of the Andes, carrying with them a modicum of food or 
other burdens. A few coca leaves sufficed as a hunger pacifier, and 
upon this as a basis the runners underwent the most exhausting and 
exacting journeys. It was accepted by observing travelers that the 
leaves, being chewed, would yield an abundance of “vital strength.” 
The endurance of people thus employing the drug is noted also by the 
Jesuit Father Blas Valera (656d) under the name Cuca. After ob- 
serving the methods of the Jesuit explorers, he writes as follows: 
It may be gathered how powerful the Cuca is in its effect on the laborer, 
from the fact that the Indians who use it become stronger and much more 
satisfied, and work all day without eating. 
Notwithstanding all this, fortified by repeated experiences of trav- 
elers, the world of scientific medicine ignored, or even ridiculed, the 
drug, until its emphatic introduction in the latter part of the last cen- 
tury (about 1870, in England), forced those concerned in authoritative 
medicine to give it some recognition. Numerous experimentations on 
its composition had been made by Dr. Weddell, in 1850 (671), and 
others, succeeding as well as preceding that date, who tried vainly to 
discover an energetic constituent of the drug. It was at first believed 
that the leaves owed their inherent qualities (if they had any, which 
was questioned) to some volatile principle, a supposition that proved a 
fallacy, other than in the discovery of the volatile base named by them 
hydrine, which did not at all represent coca and which is no longer 
mentioned. However, the persistent reports concerning the use of coca 
