Coca and Cocaine

CHAPTER XVI.

MEDICAL NOTES AND REFERENCES 69

INTRODUCTION.

The medical interest which has centred in Cocaine as a local anæsthetic during the last few years, has gradually become diffused as “public opinion,” the more so, of late, as it has been recommended as a remedy for sea-sickness, from which Britons all more or less suffer on leaving our seagirt home; otherwise, internally, Cocaine has been but little used compared with its probably extended use in the future, when its effects are better known. This now important alkaloid is obtained from the leaves of Erythroxylon Coca, Lamarck, a shrub cultivated on the eastern slopes and plateaux of the Andes, chiefly in Bolivia and Peru, but also in the Argentine Republic, Ecuador, United States of Colombia, and Central America, as far north as San Salvador, and latterly in Java, Ceylon, and some parts of British India.

COCA AND COCAINE.

CHAPTER I.. Early History.

EARLY HISTORY.

The earliest accounts extant of Coca are contained in the writings of the historians who treat of the Spanish conquests in South America in the sixteenth century, and of Spanish travellers and Jesuit missionaries who followed in their wake.

Pedro de Cieza de Leon thus writes, (A.D. 1532 to 1550):—

“I have observed in all parts of the West Indies, where I have been, that the natives delight in holding herbs, roots, or twigs of trees in their mouths. Thus, in the territory of Antiocha, they use a small Herb called Coca, and other sorts in the province of Arma. In those of Quimbaya and Anzerma, they cut twigs off a sort of tender middling trees, which are always green, wherewith they are incessantly rubbing their teeth. In most parts about Cali and Popayan, they hold in their mouths the aforesaid small Coca, with a composition they keep in little calabashes, or else a sort of earth, like lime. Throughout all Peru, from the time they rise in the morning till they go to bed at night, they are never without this Coca in their mouths. The reason some Indians, to whom I put the question, gave me for so doing, was, that it made them insensible of hunger, and added to their strength and vigour. Something there may be in it, yet I am rather of opinion it is only an ill habit, and fit for such people as they are.

“This Coca is planted on the Mountains Andes, from Guamanga, to the town of La Plata, where it grows up to little trees, which they cherish and nurse up carefully, that they may bear those leaves, resembling our Myrtle. They dry them in the sun, and then lay them in long narrow baskets, each of them holding about a quarter of a hundredweight. So highly was this Coca valued in Peru, in the years 1548, ’49, ’50, and ’51, that I believe no plant in the world, except Spice, could equal it; for at that time most of the plantations about Cuzco, La Paz, and La Plata yielded some 80, some 60, some 40,000 pieces-of-eight a year, more or less, and all in Coca; and whoever had lands assigned him first reckoned how many baskets of Coca they yielded. In fine, it was more esteemed than the best wheat. They carried it to sell at the mines of Potosi; and so many fell to planting, that it is now much fallen in the price, but will always be valued. Several Spaniards got estates by buying and selling of Coca, or bartering for it in the Indian markets.”

Nicholas Monardes, a Spanish physician of the sixteenth century, also quotes Pedro de Cieza de Leon more fully from his Commentaries “on Peruvian Things” under the heading of Betre (Betel), “History of Aromatics,” book i., with annotations:—

“This plant Coca has been celebrated for many years among the Indians, and they sow and cultivate it with much care and industry, because they all apply it daily to their use and pleasure.

“It is indeed of the height of two outstretched arms; its leaves somewhat like those of Myrtle, but larger and more succulent, and green (and they have, as it were, drawn in the middle of them another leaf of similar shape); its fruit collected together in a cluster, which like Myrtle fruit becomes red when ripening, and of the same size, and when quite ripe it is black in colour. When the time of the harvest of the leaves arrives, they are collected in baskets with other things to make them dry, that they may be better preserved, and may be carried to other places. For from their native mountains they are carried to other mountainous parts for the sake of trade, and are exchanged for other goods, such as clothes and flocks, salt and other articles, which stand to these people in the position of money. The seed is enclosed in mastiche, and removed from thence is sown elsewhere in well-cultivated earth in drills or rows, just as we sow the pea or the bean.

“Its use for many purposes is common among the Indians, for it is a necessary to them when on a journey, and they also use it when in their homes for their enjoyment, and in this manner—they burn the shells of oysters and other shells, and thus make the lime into a powder, then they grind up the Coca leaves with their teeth, this they mix with the powder of the burnt shells, and thus mingle both at once, but the quantity of lime, however, must be less than the amount of leaf; from this mass they prepare small balls or lozenges, and expose them to dry.

“When they require to use these, they take one little ball into the mouth, and suck it, turning it now this way now that way as long as they can retain it; one being consumed, they take another, and then a third, proceeding thus the whole time they have need during their long journeys, especially if they are in neighbourhoods where neither bread nor water are plentiful, because they assert that by this suction of these little balls their thirst is removed, and their strength preserved.

“If, on the other hand, they desire to use the Coca for the sake of enjoyment, they use it alone, turning it over and over in the mouth, until all its properties are exhausted, then they take more. But, if their purpose is to be inebriated, or to be taken to some extent out of themselves as if by mental alienation, they mix the leaves of Coca with those of Tobacco, and chew and suck them simultaneously; by this means they find themselves with their reason lost to them, and are like drunken men, and they experience thence very great pleasure. Wonder at this matter is not wanting, when these Indians are observed to be in this state of delight and deprivation of mind and sense, for they do indeed use Tobacco and Coca together for this purpose, or even Tobacco alone, as we describe in the second volume of this history.”

Augostin de Zarate says:—

“In certain valleys, among the mountains, the heat is marvellous, and there groweth a certain herb called Coca, which the Indians do esteem more than gold or silver; the leaves thereof are like unto Zumake (sumach), the virtue of this herb found by experience is that any man having these leaves in his mouth hath never hunger nor thirst.”

Joseph Acosta, the Jesuit, describes the use of Coca by the natives of Peru, and says:—

“For my part, and to say the truth, I am persuaded that it is not pure imagination; but, on the contrary, I hold that it gives strength and courage to the Indians; for one sees the effect of it, which cannot be attributed to imagination, as in travelling without food during many days with a handful of Coca and other similar agents.”

CHAPTER II.. Superstitions in Regard to Coca.

SUPERSTITIONS IN REGARD TO COCA.

The employment of Coca as a masticatory goes back to the time of the first Incas, being used in their religious rites as an offering to the sun; the sacrificing priest never consulted the oracles without holding some Coca leaves in his mouth, and throwing some into the fire which consumed the victims. It was reserved for this use, and for that of the monarch and those who for services rendered had become worthy of the honour of partaking of it with their sovereign.

Von Tschudi says:—“By the Peruvian Indians the Coca plant is regarded as something sacred and mysterious, and it sustained an important part in the religion of the Incas. In all ceremonies, whether religious or warlike, it was introduced for producing smoke at the great offerings, or as the sacrifice itself.”

“During divine worship the priests chewed Coca leaves, and unless they were supplied with them, it was believed that the favour of the gods could not be propitiated. It was also deemed necessary that the supplicator for divine grace should approach the priests with an acullico (or quid) in his mouth. It was believed that any business undertaken without the benediction of Coca leaves could not prosper, and to the shrub itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more than three hundred years Christianity has not been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find traces of belief in the mysterious powers of this plant. The excavators in the mines of Cerro de Pasco throw chewed Coca on hard veins of metal, in the belief that it softens the ore and renders it more easy to work. The origin of this custom is easily explained, when it is recollected that in the time of the Incas it was believed that the Coyas—the deities of metals—rendered the mountains impenetrable if they were not propitiated by the odour of Coca. The Indians, even at the present time, put Coca leaves into the mouths of dead persons, to secure to them a favourable reception on their entrance into another world; and when a Peruvian Indian on a journey falls in with a mummy, he, with timid reverence, presents to it some Coca leaves as his pious offering.”

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