CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF COCA.

COCA has been known from time immemorial in South America. At the time when Pizarro landed on the Peruvian coast, the leaf of Coca was held in great esteem among the natives ; it was considered to be a divine plant, a living representation of the Deity, a fetish of wonderful and supernatural qualities, and the fields where it grew were reverenced as sanctuaries. Not everybody was allowed to make use of it ; Its use was the privilege of the nobles and of the priests, and among the greatest rewards that the sovereign could give his subjects, the privilege of chewing Coca leaves was most highly esteemed.

However strange such a superstition may appear, it is indisputable, and all authors that have published the account of the conquest of the Indies corroborate it. It will • suffice for us to quote the testimony of Joseph Acosta, who says in every letter, of his natural and moral history of the Indies, of the East as well as of the West, published in 1653:

"The Indians esteem it highly, and during the reign of the Incas, the common people were not allowed to use Coca without the permission of the Governor."

The disappearance of the empire of the Incas, far from diminishing the importance of Coca, on the contrary gave a very much greater scope to its popularity. The natives profited by their freedom from the restrictions imposed by the native rulers in regard to the consumption of Coca, and soon the use of this leaf became so common that it has been compared by every one interested in the question to the use of tobacco by us; and as it has justly been added, without its objections. There is no more likelihood of seeing a smoker embark without his tobacco than an indian begin to work or undertake a journey unless his chuspan (pouch) is full of Coca leaves.


Three or four times a day he sits down, takes some leaves, puts them one by one into his mouth and rolls them into nan aculio (quid) adding a little llipta (lime), which he takes from his everpresent poporo. The poporo is a little gourd, bored at the mouth on the upper part, in which the Indian keeps his llipta. This llipta is a white powder composed of ashes of vegetables and of calcined shells pulverized, with which the consumers of Coca have been accustomed, from the most remote times, to season their quid. It is, really, an alkaline substance intended to isolate the different principles of the leaf and to make the action of the Coca more prompt.

Among those inhabitants of South America, with whom the use of Coca did not extend to the lower classes until after the reign of the Incas, and who reserved for themselves, as we have seen, the right of chewing the Coca leaves, the consumption of Coca by children is strictly prohibited. They do not indulge in this luxury except in secret, and it appears to them all the sweeter because it is forbidden. But • nearly always their breath, charged with the tell-tale odor pf Coca, betrays them on approaching their parents, and the latter make them pay for the pleasure which they have stolen, and to which they are not entitled until they are of age, with very severe punishment. Only when they have grown up will they be allowed to chew Coca and to carry the poporo, which they do not relinquish even in the grave.

On coming of age the young Indian is consigned to an old woman, who keeps him a few hours in her but to initiate him in the mysteries of man's estate.

After this ceremony she gives him the chuspa (Coca pouch), invests him with the poporo and consecrates him a cogucro. One should see with what pride the young Indian leaves the threshold of the sacred cabin, which he entered as a child scarcely a few hours before and from which he departs a man, that is to say, carrying the chuspa and the poporo, and able to chew with impunity, before the old people, this precious leaf which bad been forbidden him until then.

No happiness is comparable to his ! See with what an important air he draws forth the Coca leaves from his chuspa, as he rolls them in his fingers to make a large quid of them, which he carries to his mouth, moistens delightingly with saliva, and places under his jaws and against his cheeks. He is seen holding carefully in his right hand the little stick, the extremity of which he is going to moisten by putting it into his mouth, and which he will dip into the popara in order that the //ipta may adhere to its moistened part.

He carefully carries the part of his little stick covered with //ipta to his quid, and thus performs the operation of mixing the alkaline powder with the masticated leaf, It is at this moment that the quid of Coca affords the young adult the most delightful sensation. His jaws munch it slowly, his tongue collects and rolls it up against the left cheek, all the papilla of his mouth refresh themselves deliciously with the soothing and aromatic juices of the precious leaf, and by the slow and measured motions of deglutition, he carries with delight the precious juice into the pharynx and thence to the stomach. While he is accomplishing this important operation, his eyes swim with beatitude, over his entire countenance is diffused an expression of content and unutterable joy, and his right hand slowly turns the little stick around the upper part of the pops°, where are deposited little by little the particles of llipta and masticated Coca, which on leaving his mouth adhere to its extremity.

The only occupation of the first days of the adult is the much-loved quid of Coca and the encrusting of his gourd, which we cannot do better than compare to the coating of the pipe, with this difference that our confirmed smokers blacken hundreds of their pipes during their existence, while the Indian encrusts only one gourd in his whole life; so that by the thickness of the crust formed around a /opera, it is possible to judge the age of its owner. This crust, which hardly ever exceeds the thickness of a ring on the pp.'s° of a young Indian, ends by reaching the dimension of the pileus of a large mushroom on the popes° of an old man.

The crust is produced by the particles of Coca and apta mixed with saliva which are deposited little by little about the mouth of the toporo by smearing with the stick.

These deposits are brought about in an almost imperceptible manner. It is only after some months that the surface of the poporo, on which the chewer continually turns the little stick, becomes covered with a hardly perceptible layer of calcareous substance; at the end of two or three years the superimposed layers form a ring which grows larger from year to year, and which finally attains the thickness we have spoken of above

As we have said before the Indian never parts with his poporo, let him be awake or asleep, at home or on his travels, the poporo is always attached to his belt. An Indian would part with all he holds most dear in the world, all, except his poporo.

We have the rare and good fortune to possess a poporo of which we give a picture. It is, we bhelieve, the only specimen existing in Europe. We owe it to the kindness of M. Gauguet, who has made numerous voyages to Clombia, where he has been able to establish so much sympathy among the natives that one of their old chiefs, who was specially indebted, did not fear to depart from all custom and to incur the contempt of his companions, by offering him, as a pledge of friendship, the object to which he attached the greatest value—his poporo ! (1)

Thus the great importance that an Indian attaches to Coca is easily shown. It should be recognized, moreover, that the first conquerors of the country did not fail to countenance the passion of the vanquished for the national plant. In fact, they quickly recognized that the habit of consuming Coca might become an excellent source of revenue ; and Garcillasco de la Vega, a half-breed of the first generation, tells us that in his time a part of the impost was paid to the conqueror in the form of Coca leaves. The benefits which were derived from the traffic in this plant were such that at a certain time the revenues of the bishop and of the canons of the cathedral of Cuzco came from the tithe on these leaves.

There was, moreover, another object in favoring the use of Coca among the Indians. The latter were treated, as is known, as if they were beasts of burden, and their oppressors were not slow to recognize the fact that they furnished much better labor when they consumed Coca.

We shall see, further on, that the recognition of this fact, the correctness of which cannot be disputed, and which served to excite the rapacity of the conquering savages of that time, has become to-day the means of furnishing one of the most valuable aids to contemporary therapeutics.

The particular favor in which the plant was held in the beginning of the conquest, was destined to suffer some disturbance. In the seventeenth century, for example, the religious, quibbles regaining the ascendancy in public affairs, some sedate theologians pretended that Coca was an aliment, and that under this name the use of it should be prohibited to young people and before the communion. The question was vigorously contested, and there is no doubt that the consumption of Coca would have sustained a very decided blow had not Prince don Alonzo de la Pina Montenegro declared that the plant contained no alimentary principle. This point we shall presently consider from a scientific point of view.

Although the inhabitants of the Indies attach so much importance to the use of Coca, this product can not be acclimatized in our hemisphere, and our fathers who took up the use of tobacco with so much eagerness remained indifferent to Coca. Perhaps this indifference should be attributed to the exaggerations of the first importers, who coming to Europe still imbued with the legends gathered in the New World ascribed supernatural qualities to the new plant. The exaggeration of these statements soon became apparent. From this it was only a step to a denial even of its existence. And thus, for more than two centuries, we were deprived of the advantages to be derived from the judicious use of the plant

It should not be believed, however, that the various writers during these two centuries remained entirely silent regarding Coca. The study of the properties of the plant was still a field of research for a number of learned men, small, it is true, but they well knew that side by side with fiction, which they rejected, there was a reality that it were better to accept.

We further observe, that Claude Duret, a magistrate of Moulins, who wrote a book, printed in 1605, on The Mar. vellous and Wonderful Plants in Nature, mentions Coca as one of the most worthy to figure in his colleccion.
Nicholas Monardes in the General History of Plants, pub. lished in Lyons in 1683, calls attention likewise to the properties of Coca.

In the seventeenth century, l'abbe Longuerue, who was a theologian, an historian, and a philologist, speaking of the Spanish colonies in South America, says, in regard to the mines explored in Peru : "The negroes can not work the mines, they all die. Hardly any but the natives are able to endure this labor, and then it is necessary to relieve them frequently and that they should chew Coca, without which the quicksilver vapors would kill them."

Linnaeus says that Coca possesses : "the penetrating aroma of vegetable stimulants, the astricting and fortifying virtues of an astringent, the antispasmodic qualities of bitters, and the mucilaginous nutritive properties of ana- I leptics or of alimentary plants. This leaf," he continues, "exhibits with energy its action on all parts of the animal economy : Olido in nervos, sapido in fibras utrogue in fluido."

Father don Antonio Julian wrote : "This plant is a preventive against many diseases, a restorative of lost strength, and is capable of prolonging human life. It is sincerely to be regretted that so many poor families do not possess this preventive of hunger and thirst ; that so many employees and laborers should be deprived of this means of maintaining their strength in the midst of continuous toil ; that so many old and young men engaged in the arduous task of study and the accomplishment of their undertakings are unable to derive the beneficial results of this plant to guard against the exhaustion of the vital spirits, debility of the brain, and weakness of the stomach, which are frequent results of continuous study."

Boerhaave (Inst. phys.§ 68), states that : "the saliva charged with all the bitter and mucilaginous principles of Coca carries to the stomach, in addition to vital strength, a veritable nutritive which, digested and converted into an abundant and nutritious chyle, enters into the circulation and is converted into the material necessary to sustain the human economy."

We shall not stop to quote the different writings of observers who have interested themselves in Coca. It may be inferred from the preceding statements that Coca possesses this particular character, viz., of enabling those who make use of it to withstand the greatest fatigue. Men employed in hard work in mines, couriers obliged to traverse mountainous countries difficirlt of travel without being able to take much rest, in a word, persons subject to overwork in every way, all agree in recognizing the strengthening and nerve-fortifying action of Coca. It supports them, economizes their forces, prevents their succumbing to lassitude—in short, augments their vitality.

When the Indian has a good supply of Coca he undertakes, without the slightest fear, the most difficult and longest voyages, even into fever-stricken countries.

When he passes before an apachecta (a quadrangular mound which the natives raise on the sides of the roads at certain points for a halting-place), the Indian divests himself of his wraps, takes his quid of Coca from his mouth, always after having previously exhausted it, and, in order to draw down upon it the blessing of Pachacamac, their sovereign master of the world, he throws it against the consecrated hillock. Thus, that which particularly characterizes these kinds of tumuli are the green splashes of Coca with which they are literally covered.

The name of coqueros is given to the chewers of Coca. It seems that this plant procured for them dreams like those to which hachisch gives rise.

In native therapeutics, this plant is used to dress ulcers and all kinds of sores. The Indians also use it to combat asthma, jaundice, colic, etc.

Coca is consumed chiefly in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil. Since 1883—the time from which our first efforts to popularize it date—its use has rapidly become general, and it may be stated that to-day it is known and used in all civilized countries.

(1) Mr. Mariani has presented to the Academy of Medicine a plaster cast of this very poporo, in his possession.