William Martindale

“ 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 [Pg 5] men, and they experience thence very great pleasure. ”

“ When the Indians are obliged to water their fields during the night, in the middle of the rigours of winter, and on the most elevated plateaux, they are often many hours knee-deep in water, and exposed like their comrades to the cutting blast of a cold and penetrating wind. ”

“ Brandy gives strength, as all know; but who does not know also that the ‘gift’ is but a loan made out at the expense of strength reserved for the future? The action of this agent, though powerful, is transient. The stimulus produced by mastication of the leaf of the Erythroxylon is, on the contrary, slow and sustained, characters which it owes, doubtless, in great part to the manner of its employment, since an infusion of Coca acts very differently from the leaf taken in the ordinary way. ”

“ As a beverage to substitute for tea or coffee, a decoction or an infusion of Coca is worthy of attention at the present time. The Indian use of it in moderation seems to prolong life, without much need of sleep or food, or even the desire for these, although in excess it has, no doubt, a degrading effect. A taste for infusion or decoction of Coca or its pharmaceutical preparations is easily acquired; if a good sample of leaves be used it is not even at first disagreeable. ”

“ Mantegazza deserve, therefore, our full attention.
‘The child and the feeble old man seize with equal eagerness the leaves of the wonderful herb, and find in it indemnification for all suffering and misery.
‘Dr. Mantegazza observed that the chewing of a drachm of the leaves of the Coca increased salivation, giving at first a somewhat bitter, and afterwards an aromatic, taste in the mouth, and a feeling of comfort in the stomach, as after a frugal meal eaten with good appetite. ”

“ 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.”
The reliance, Pöppig says, on its extraordinary virtues among the Peruvian Indians is so strong that, in the [Pg 7] Huanuco Province, they believe that if a dying man can taste a leaf placed on the tongue, it is a sure sign of his future happiness. ”

“ The Inca, who lives at a height of seven to fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and whose meagre fare consists principally of maize, some dried meat, and potatoes of bad quality, believes that he can sustain his strength solely by the use of Coca; the porter, who carries the mail, and accompanies the traveller over the roughest roads at the quick pace of the mule, invigorates and strengthens himself by chewing Coca ”

“ The use of this masticatory, which is considered a great delicacy, is not, however, confined to the rich; on the contrary, it is particularly among the hard-working Indians that the Coca enjoys a high reputation as a nutriment and restorative, and its use is considered absolutely essential for the endurance of fatigue and exertion, so that a labourer, in making his contract, has a view not only to wages, but to the amount of Coca to be furnished. ”

“ It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that this article should be very much abused, and that the evil of intemperance in the use of Coca, known as coquear, should be quite as prevailing among the natives of those districts as intemperance in the use of tobacco, alcoholic liquors, and opium is among other nations. They intoxicate themselves for several weeks, hide in the deepest forests in order not to be disturbed in their enjoyment, and not rarely return home to their family suffering from delirium or decided idiocy. ”

“ He prefers solitude, and, when a slave to his cravings, he will often take himself for days together to the silence of the woods to indulge unrestrained the use of the leaf. The habit must be very seducing, as, though long stigmatised and very generally considered as a degrading, purely Indian vice, many white Peruvians at Lima and elsewhere retire daily at stated times to chew Coca. Even Europeans, Von Tschudi says, have fallen into the habit. ”

“ One of the warmest advocates of the plant was the Jesuit Don Antonio Julian, who, in a work entitled “Perla de America,” laments that Coca is not introduced into Europe instead of tea and coffee. “It is,” he observes, “melancholy to reflect that the poor of Europe cannot obtain this preservative against hunger and thirst; that our working people are not supported by this strengthening plant in their long-continued labours.”
Under Don Francisco de Toledo, Viceroy of Peru, the cultivation continued, conditionally on voluntary and well-paid labourers only being employed in the Cocals. ”

“ He says, “After partaking of a strong infusion of Coca, or the mastication of a great quantity of it, the eye seems unable to bear light, and there is a marked distension of the pupil, and, when taken to the utmost excess, it never, like opium, causes a total alienation of the mental powers, or induces sleep; but, like opium, it excites the sensibility [Pg 50] of the brain, and the repeated excitement occasioned by its intemperate use after a series of years wears out mental vigour and activity.” ”

“ For resisting all these fatigues and the inclemencies of the seasons, the Indians have no other food than a handful of maize, a few potatoes, and their pouch of Coca leaves. They never eat flesh unless it is given them, which is rarely, as they respect the lives of their flocks as their own. ”

“ Coca has been praised as a nervine and muscular tonic, preventing waste of tissue, appeasing hunger and thirst, relieving fatigue, and aiding free respiration, and as being useful in various diseases of the digestive and respiratory organs. It is said to be specially useful in many forms of asthma, chronic bronchitis, obstinate cough, phthisis, and general debility; in gastric derangements, owing to its slight astringency, it seems to give more tone to the stomach than the mere anæsthetic action of the Cocaine it contains would produce locally ”

“ Again, the Indian always seeks the Coca grown at the higher elevations, where the humidity is much less and more irregular than in the districts along the rivers. We are thus obliged, for reasons to be elaborated in the future, to regard these alkaloids as preserving a sort of a balance of moisture, by which the plant stores up during the wet weather a concentrated supply of water, which may be very slowly yielded up during a time of need. ”

“ The uses of the Coca leaf in Bolivia and Peru have been described by many travellers, who have seen it chewed, as has been before mentioned. From two to eight or twelve drachms or more is used daily, in conjunction with the ashes of the quinoa plant or with lime, as a remedy for, or preventive against, the effects of extraordinary physical exertion, to relieve the difficulty of respiration in ascending mountains, and to appease hunger, thirst, and fatigue. ”

“ Both Pöppig and Von Tschudi give a doleful account of the intemperate use of Coca by the inveterate coquero, as he is called,—his bad breath, pale lips and gums, greenish and stumpy teeth, and an ugly black mark at the angles of his mouth, his unsteady gait, yellow skin, dim and sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general apathy—all bear evidence of the baneful effects of the Coca when taken in excess. ”

“ Whether it does more than deceive or lull hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and how it acts in these respects, are subjects still to be investigated. The effect which travellers have noticed it has on the respiration at high elevations cannot be imaginary. Under the influence of Coca, it has been said, it appears that a new force gradually introduces itself into our organism, as water into a sponge. ”

“ During the prolonged siege which the rebel Indians carried on in 1781 against the town of La Paz in Bolivia, the inhabitants had no other food left than leather, unclean animals, &c., and having to watch at night in the trenches during a rigorous winter to repulse the attacks of the Indians, a great many took to the use of Coca, as the only means of averting this horrible famine. ”

“ It is probable that the decline is then due rather to the exhaustion of the soil than of the vitality of the plant. Fertilisation of the soil has never been resorted to. It is probable, as suggested by Mr. Lohse, that as much can be done for the Coca in this way as has been done for other plants.
“A Coca harvest is called a mita, an Indian word meaning a division or drawing of lots, and there are from three to five in a year, according to the season. The time of picking is determined solely by the condition of the leaves. ”

“ Augostin de Zarate [4] 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, [5] 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 ”

“ 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 generalising exceptional facts. For my part, I may say, that the researches that I have been able to make on the subject, in localities where the Coca is 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 ”

“ The watering of the Coca plantations greatly increases their productiveness. Forty days are then sufficient, I have been told, for naked shrubs to become covered with new leaves; but these leaves are not equal in their properties to those produced without irrigation; their colour also is less deep, and they frequently blacken in drying. Artificial watering is needful, moreover, only during the dry season, and the cultivators who have the means of employing it realise nearly always four, and sometimes even five, crops in the year. ”

“ All the mountain Indians, [10] Von Tschudi states, are addicted more or less to the practice of masticating Coca. Each man consumes, on an average, between [Pg 11] an ounce and an ounce and a half per day, and on festival days about double that quantity. The owners of mines and plantations allow their labourers to suspend their work three times a day for the chacchar or masticating operation, which usually occupies upwards of a quarter of an hour; and after that they smoke a paper cigar, which they allege crowns the zest of the Coca mastication. ”

“ Passing now to the beneficial effects of Coca on the sick and invalid, facts which, Senor Fuentes asserts, experience has confirmed; it is said to strengthen the gums and preserve the teeth. Taken in the form of an infusion, like tea, it excites perspiration and soothes those who suffer from asthma. Taken either in infusion or chewed, it assists the functions of the stomach, removes obstructions, and cures gripes or colic. ”

“ Cocainæ Hydrochloras, Hydrochlorate of Cocaine (Off.) .
Off. Dose.—1⁄5 to 1 grain, but less and more may be given, in aqueous solution, pill, or pastil.
This salt has been most used: if pure it is in hard, colourless, short, acicular, granular-looking crystals, or, now more frequently met with, in light, shining, lamellar crystals, free from odour and almost tasteless; being soluble in half its weight of water, the tingling numbness and local anæsthesia which it produces on the tongue are more intense than that produced by pure cocaine. ”

“ As regards the exportation of the culture of Coca, the experiment has been tried, I believe, but once. Several years since, Mr. F. L. Steinart, of La Paz, shipped a small quantity of seeds viâ London to Ceylon, and during the past season the first products were shipped to London and sold at a high price. Seeds for export should be exposed for several days to a hot sun, so as to rapidly dry the fleshy exterior, which thus forms a protection to the germ within.
“It is my opinion that the Coca-plant is adapted for [Pg 37] culture in many countries where it is now unknown. ”

“ The sensitiveness of the iris is less affected than that of the surface of the eye. The great excellence of cocaine consists in the limitation of its action to the tissues to which it is applied. No doubt, other symptoms at a distance do result from the external application of the anæsthetic, but they are, for the most part, insignificant and free from dangerous consequences. ”

“ Jaundice and derangement of the nervous system follow, along with pains in the head, and such prostration of strength that the patient speedily loses all appetite; the hue of the whites assumes a leaden colour, and a total inability to sleep ensues, which aggravates the mental depression of the unhappy individual, who, in spite of all his ills, cannot relinquish the use of the herb to which he owes his sufferings, but craves brandy in addition. ”

“ A Scotchman named Campbell, who was settled as a merchant at Tacna in Bolivia, and with whom I travelled to Europe from Lima, informed me that a few years before, being engaged upon matters of urgent business, he had performed in one day a distance of 90 English miles on mule-back, and throughout that long distance had been accompanied by an Aymara Indian, who kept up easily with the mule, without other refreshment than a few grains of roasted maize and Coca leaves, which, mingled with undissolved chalk (? slaked lime) , he chewed incessantly. ”

“ Richard Gibbs, U.S. minister to Bolivia, for some years resident at La Paz, gives a similar account to that of Weddell of the cultivation of Coca at the present day. [29] He says the consumers of Coca, both in Peru and in Bolivia, are the native races; the whites seldom use it, except as an infusion, and then the first water is thrown away as being too strong. The habitual consumers of it know nothing of toothache, and have their teeth in good condition to a great age. ”

“ No irrigation is resorted to during the dry season. Although it is possible that good might result, at least to the welfare of the plant and the size of the crop, I suspect that after a long time an abundant and steady supply of water would result in a decrease in the amount of alkaloids. Mr. Lohse has tried the experiment of mulching at the end of the wet season with a few inches of banana leaves or other refuse, with excellent effect upon the plants during the succeeding dry season. ”

“ Coca is also said to cause mental exhilaration, to overcome diffidence or bashfulness in company, and to be an excitant of the vital functions. It has been used in melancholia, in cases of inordinate hunger or thirst, such as occur in some forms of diabetes, and in cases of generative debility. Locally, a solution of the extract in water has been used as a pigment in irritated, inflamed, and granular conditions of the larynx and pharynx. ”