Coca, cocaine and its salts : their history, medical and economic uses, and medicinal preparations.

  • Martindale, William, 1840-1902.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coca, cocaine and its salts : their history, medical and economic uses, and medicinal preparations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    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 bum 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 lozeuges, and expose them to dry. “ When they require to use these, thay take one little hall 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 w ole time they have need during their long journeys, especially if they are iu neighbourhoods where neither bread nor water are plentiful, because ihey 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 prouerties 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.”