Coca and its therapeutic application / by Angelo Mariani.

  • Mariani, Angelo.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coca and its therapeutic application / by Angelo Mariani. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    throat, which were irritated constantly by cigarette smok- ing. ^ ‘‘ The patient at first only used morphine, but his phy- sicians committed the imprudence of treating him by hypodermic injection. A notable change for the better was produced during the first month, but, unfortunately, abuse succeeded promptly the use of the medicament so much so that when I commenced to treat the patient, he was taking daily from 1 gramme 50 centigrammes to 1 gramme 80 centigrammes of morphine hypodermically. When he was four hours without his dose there appeared insomnia, hallucinations and delirium; constipation last- ing sometimes for fifteen days, which brought on in the spring a very alarming perityphlitis, jerking of the mus- cles, sudden frights, dyspepsia, and at last frightful con- gestion of the face whenever he drank a drop of wine or brandy. “ After a month’s treatment I had succeeded in reducing the daily doses without causing alarming symptoms; the physiological functions seemed to awaken again. How- ever, the congestion and especially the dyspepsia was very grave, and the cough which had been suppressed by mor- phine returned. It was then that I treated my patient with phosphate of lime, the pate and the Vin Mariaiii. Lacking his habitual stimulant, he was plunged in a semi- coma from which he could not always be relieved with weaker daily doses of morphine. “ The danger I feared most was a relapse of bronchitis, and that the cough and expectoration might end fatally. But in about a week, during which he took ten doses of Pate de Coca daily, the cough became less fatiguing and dis- appeared entirely in about twenty days. The patient then commenced to take small doses of Vin Mariani (two Madeira- glasses a day). At first congestion appeared, but little by little, as digestion became more easy, my patient, who on account of his profound anaemia could not tolerate any