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.