94 PHARMACOPEIA!, DRUGS 



"All of these were well prepared by Mr. Garrard, 

 of University College Hospital, who has taken much 

 interest in the subject, and who has also very success- 

 fully obtained the alkaloid and the volatile constituent 

 of the leaf, and is still continuing an investigation of its 

 pharmaceutical properties, for which his skillful prepa- 

 rations of other previously unknown alkaloids, as of 

 jaborandi, eminently qualify him." 



The preparations made by Garrard not only par- 

 alleled the processes of the native users of coca, but also 

 included others, suggested by his own chemical and 

 pharmaceutical knowledge. The experimentation con- 

 sidered, in detail, bodily conditions, rate of pulse, tem- 

 perature, urine, urea excretion, etc., etc., as influenced 

 by coca. Two detailed tables give the results, which, 

 to the utter disparagement of coca, Dowdeswell sums 

 up as follows: (196a) 



"It has not affected the pupil nor the state of the 

 skin; it has caused neither drowsiness nor sleeplessness; 

 assuredly it has occasioned none of those subjective ef- 

 fects so fervidly described and ascribed to it by others 

 not the slightest excitement, not even the feeling of 

 buoyancy and exhilaration which is experienced from 

 mountain air, or a draught of spring water. This ex- 

 amination was commenced in the expectation that the 

 drug would prove important and interesting physiolog- 

 ically, and perhaps valuable as a therapeutical agent. 

 This expectation has been disappointed. Without as- 

 serting that it is positively inert, it is concluded from 

 these experiments that its action is so slight as to pre- 

 clude the idea of its having any value either thera- 

 peutically or popularly; and it is the belief of the writer, 

 from observation upon the effect on the pulse, etc., of 



