It is said that the use of the leaves enabled the Indians to undergo extreme hardships. A French missionary states that the leaves were absolutely necessary to the slaves employed in the quicksilver mines of Peru. They were also used in dressing wounds, ulcers, and taken internally for the cure of intestinal troubles, jaundice, and various spasmodic troubles. Historians seem to agree that the constant chewing of the leaves by the Indians did not produce any very marked deleterious effects. Mariani, upon the authority of several authors, states that it even seems to be conducive to longevity. The dead of the South American Indians were always supplied with a liberal quantity of coca to enable them to make the long and fatiguing journey to the promised land.

Chewing coca leaves is a habit which may be compared to the habit of chewing tobacco with the difference that the former is by far less injurious though there are good reasons to believe that it is far from harmless. Dr. Wedell says an habitual coca chewer is known as coquero and is recognized by his haggard look, gloomy and solitary habit, listless inability, and disinclination for any active employment. The same authority states further that the habitual use of coca acts more prejudicially upon Europeans than upon the Indians accustomed to it from their early years. Occasionally it causes a peculiar aberration of intellect, characterized by hallucinations.

Chewing coca leaves has never become common among civilized nations. Large quantities of leaves are, however, imported for the purposes of extracting the active principle cocaine, whose effects are very marked. Cocaine causes a feeling of depression, and a marked reduction in the activity of the senses preceded by stimulation. Cocaine solutions are very extensively employed to produce local anesthesia in minor surgical operations. Dentists employ it very extensively. Its use has several serious drawbacks. Occasionally it produces no effects whatever and again an ordinary medicinal dose has caused fatal poisoning. For these reasons dentists, physicians, and surgeons often hesitate in using it. According to some authorities the poisonous effects are due to a second alkaloid which occurs in the leaves of some varieties of coca. If that is the case, then poisoning may be prevented by excluding these varieties from the market, which is not an easy matter considering that the leaves are collected, dried, and shipped by ignorant natives. It is also known that the active principle is rapidly destroyed, hence the necessity of, using fresh leaves. In the course of one year most of the cocaine has undergone a chemical change and the leaves are absolutely worthless. Careless drying also destroys much or all of the cocaine.

Description of Plate. — A, flowering branch; 1. bracts, enlarged; 2. flowering bud; 3. flower; 4 and 5. petal with ligula; 6. pistil with stamens; 7. stamen; 8. pistil; 9. ovary, transverse section, 10 and 11. corolla; 12 and 13. fruit.

^*Cvea on plate, typographical error; Coca correct. — ED.