526 COCAINE 



same order as they have previously stimulated the parts, 

 implicating first the brain, then the corpora quadrigemina, 

 the spinal cord, and lastly the medulla. Injected hypo- 

 dermically, twelve to fifteen grains kill small dogs in ten 

 minutes (Hobday). 



MEDICINAL USES. Cocaine hydrochloride is a convenient 

 and effectual local anaesthetic. Its effects are confined to 

 the skin or mucous surface moistened with it, are more easily 

 regulated than those of ether spray, are unaccompanied by 

 pain, and may be kept up for considerable periods without 

 injuriously affecting the nutrition of the parts. Anaesthesia 

 may be produced within five minutes, and, when insensibility 

 is secured, it usually continues for twenty to thirty minutes. 

 For application to the sound skin cocaine should be dissolved 

 in oil of cloves which ensures deeper penetration. Twenty 

 minims of a 4 or 5 per cent, solution dropped into the eye 

 within ten minutes diminish sensibility, so that a thorough 

 examination can be made of the organ ; the irritability and 

 pain of conjunctivitis, iritis, and ulceration of the cornea are 

 abated ; chaff or other foreign bodies imbedded in the 

 cornea can be removed without provoking pain or reflex 

 movements ; warts can be excised, torn lids stitched, and 

 injuries of the eye painlessly treated. Indeed, after several 

 applications of the cocaine solution, the eyeball of the horse 

 has been removed, without symptoms of pain, and with- 

 out the necessity of casting the patient. In examinations 

 and operations in connection with the larynx, cocaine is 

 equally serviceable, and for such cases a stronger solution 

 is generally used. Applied to the skin, along the course 

 of the plantar nerves, and still more effectually when 

 injected subcutaneously, it abolishes sensibility suffi- 

 ciently for the painless performance of neurectomy. 

 R. Rutherford, after closely clipping or shaving the hair, 

 finds that half an ounce of a 20 per cent, solution, in 

 fifteen or twenty minutes anaesthetises the limbs even 

 of irritable horses sufficiently for the performance of 

 firing without casting, and for the painless insertion of 

 setons. In combination with a small proportion (five to 

 ten per cent.) of solution of adrenalin, it is very serviceable 

 in operations on mucous membranes, the uterus, vagina, 



