ON  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  COCA. 
147 
beneficial  products  of  the  vegetable  kingdom  ;f  and  such  would 
doubtless  remain  the  admitted  opinion,  had  not  a  modern  tra- 
veller completely  shaken  it,  by  supporting  an  opposite  view,  that 
is  to  say,  in  attributing  to  coca  very  pernicious  effects,  compara- 
ble in  fact  to  those  brought  about  by  the  excessive  use  of  opium. 
Such  assertions  in  the  presence  of  reports  so  opposite  as  those 
I  have  cited,  may  well  cause  some  astonishment.  Individuals 
are,  however,  not  wanting,  who  give  us  to  understand,  that  if 
this  traveller  had  not  trusted  too  implicitly  to  the  accounts  of 
ill-informed  persons,  he  had  erred  at  least,  in  too  much  generali- 
zing exceptional  facts.  For  my  part,  I  may  say,  that  the  re- 
searches that  I  have  been  able  to  make  on  the  subject,  in  locali- 
ties where  the  coca  is  the  most  in  use,  have  shown  me  that  the 
mastication  of  the  leaf  does  sometimes  produce  evil  consequences 
among  Europeans  who  have  not  accustomed  themselves  to  it  from 
youth ;  and,  in  two  or  three  cases,  I  have  thought  I  could  at- 
tribute to  the  abuse  of  this  practice  a  peculiar  aberration  of  the 
intellectual  faculties  indicated  by  hallucinations.  But  in  the 
countries  which  I  have  visited,  on  no  occasion  have  I  seen  the 
results  to  reach  the  point  instanced  by  M.  Poeppig. 
Let  us  now  examine  what  are  thejDeneficial  properties  attribu- 
table to  coca.  Of  these  the  most  remarkable  is  undeniably  its 
reputed  power  of  sustaining  the  strength  in  the  absence  of  any 
other  nutriment.  The  facts  on  which  this  opinion  rests  have 
been  asserted  by  so  many  credible  persons,  that  scepticism  must 
be  carried  very  far  to  throw  over  it  a  doubt ;  it  appears  to  me, 
however,  that  opinions  may  vary  according  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  same  facts. 
One  of  two  things  is  certain,  either  the  coca  contains  some  nu- 
tritive principle  which  directly  sustains  the  strength,  or  it  does 
t  "  Quotquot  Peiuanam  historiam  scripserunt,  referunt  earum  regionurn 
incolas  admodum  delectari  quarumdam  radicum,  ramusculorum,  aut  herba- 
rurn  gestatoire  in  ore,  ut  Orientales  suo  Betre  [betel]  delectantur :  praesertim 
verd  familiarem  esse  (Petri  Ciecss  testimorio)  quandam  herbarn  Coca  illis 
dictam,  quam  a  summo  mane  ad  noctem  usque  perpetud  in  ore  retinent, 
tametsi  neque  cam  mandant,  neque  deglutiant.  Percontati  cur  earn  assidue 
in  ore  habeant,  respondent  ejus  usu  nec  famem  nec  sitim  sibi  molestam, 
et  vires  roburque  sibi  confirmari." — Clusii  Exoticorum  Libri—Aromatum 
Histories }  lib  .  1,  cap.  xviii. 
