PHARMACOP@IAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
and its reputed powers as an empirical substance that was creeping 
into the use of practicing physicians, led such chemists as Hesse, Nie- 
mann, Stanislas, Martin, Maisch, Lossin, Woehler, and many others, 
to repeated chemical examinations of the drug and its qualities, result- 
ing in a number of products, such as coca-wax, coca-tannic acid, and 
even of several alkaloidal bases, including one named cocaine, this al- 
kaloid being discovered in 1860 by Niemann, an assistant in the labora- 
tory of Professor Woehler, of Gottingen, Germany. 
But notwithstanding the identification, half a century ago, of its 
now well-known alkaloid, coca was long thereafter “authoritatively” 
considered as inert, or simply a mild stimulant, like tea. Its alleged 
properties were deemed legendary and imaginary, its alkaloid similar 
to caffeine, both in constitution and qualities. This view prevailed until 
Koller, in 1884, confounded the professional world, as well as that of 
science, by announcing thte marvelous qualities of cocaine as a local 
anesthetic. In this connection we may further anticipate by saying 
that previous investigators of coca had already employed the physi- 
ological method of injecting the alkaloid cocaine into the veins of the 
lower animals, as well as the utilization of other scientific methods of 
determining its value, such “authoritative” investigations being accepted 
as conclusive evidence of the fact that coca, other than as a mild stimu- 
lant, like tea or coffee, was worthless and inert, and that its alkaloid, 
cocaine, was similar in effect to caffeine. Physicians using coca were 
thus becoming subjects of ridicule, as being incapable of judging a 
remedy’s qualities ; pharmacists making preparations of the drug were 
tinctured with the odium of being concerned in a fraud, while the na- 
tives who employed it in their daily life, as well as travelers impressed 
thereby, were regarded as being involved in ignorance and imbued with 
superstitious imaginings. Into these classes were thrust such men as 
Poeppig, von Tschudi, Scherzer, Stevenson, Weddell, Spruce, Markham, 
and others, scientists and travelers, who spoke from personal observa- 
tion or experience. Although other pessimists contributed in the same 
direction, the most authoritative investigations to discredit coca ap- 
peared in the London Lancet, 1876 (196a), and in the Edinburgh 
Medical Journal, Vol. XIX, 1873 (55b), which may be summarized 
as follows: 
__ G. F. Dowdeswell, B. A., of London, England, being conversant 
with the record of coca and much interested in the subject, determined 
to establish its position unquestionably, by personal experimentation in 
a scientific way. With this object, he made a careful study of the rec- 
ord of coca (196a) and its reputed action. He took pains to credit 
those who had previously made reports, describing in detail the proc- 
esses of the native coca users, and including the experiments of Dr. 
Alexander Bennett, 1873 (55b), in which the physiological action of 
cocaine on frogs, mice, and rabbits gave no therapeutic promise of in- 
dividual characteristic other than the suggestion that it paralleled caffe- 
ine, theine, and theobromine, the summary (Bennett) being as follows: 
When we com this cocaine with theine, caffei 
that if it is not identical with ‘heer suniaeiecs, & is intionstely «liana soto te 
chemical composition; (p. 324). 
20 
