The Portland daily press., 1886-01-09
WHAT cocAINEis MADE OF.
The Strange Effects of Chewing
Coca.
Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth Century,
In the valleys east of the Andes in tropi-
cal South America there are, and have been
from time immemorial, extensive plantations
of the coca shrub 1t is Indigenous in these
regions. but the natives of Peru and Bolivia
cultivate the plant in terraces which are
likened to the vineyards of Tuscany and the
Holy Land. LrythroXylon coca is allied to
the common flax and forms, DR.. johnson,
saws. a shrub of six or eight feet resembling
our blackthorn, with small white flowers and
bright green leaves. Many thousands of
acres are devoted in Peru and Bolivia to its
growth. The leaves, of which there may be
three or four crops in the year, are collected
by the women and children and dried in the
sun, after which they are ready for use, and
form, according to travellers, the usual
money exchange in some districts, the work
men being paid in coca leaf. The consump-
ton of this leaf almost universal in the
countries named, has extended across the
continent into Brazil; but here it is pow
dered and chewed with the ashes of plants.
Among the Peruyians and Bolivians the coca
leaves are rolled with little unslaked lime
into a ball (acullico) and chewed in the
mouth. The practice, it has been said, is
almost universal in these South American
countries. Although the Spanish conquer
ors denounced the native Indian and all his
works. including the chewing of the coca
leaf these prohibitions proved as powerless
as the bull launched by Urban the Eighth
against tobacco. The Peruvian was faith
full to the tradition of his fathers. The
Spaniard seeing how admirably the natives
in min
coca was permitted them at last decreed
certain hours of suspension of labor for
chewing the leaf, and presently came to en-
courage the growth by every means in their
power and even to recommend its introduce
ton into Europe.
Coca chewing resembles in some respects
the smoking of opium. Both must be taken
apart and with elaboration. The coca
chewer three or four times in the day retireS
to a secluded spot lays down his burden and
Slowly from the chuspa, or little pouch,
which is ever at his girdle, the leaves and
the lime are brought FORTH The ball is
formed and chewed for fifteen or thirty min
utes and then the toiler rises refreshed, and
returns to that monot0nOus round of labor,
in which the coca is his only and much
priced distraction. Some take it to excess,
and to these the name of coquero is given.
This is particularly common among the
white Peruvians of good family, and hence
the name "White Coquero'' in that country
is term Of reproach equivalent to our "irre-
claimable drunkard" The Indians regard
the coca with extreme reverence. Won
Tschudi, quoted by DR.: johnson in his
Chemistry of Common Life" says: Dur
ing divine worship the priests chewed coca
leaves, and unless they were supplied with
them it was believed that the favor of the
gods could not be propitiated. 1t was also
deemed necessary that the supplicator for
divine grace should approach the priests
with an acullico in his mouth. 1t was be-
lieyed than any business undertaken without
the benediction of cocoa leaves could not
prosper, and to the shrub itself worship was
rendered. During an interval of more than
three hundred years Christianity has not
been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry
| for everywhere we find traces of belief in
the mysterious. powers of this plant The
| excavatorS in the mines of Cerro de Pasco
| throw cheWed coca upon hard veins of metal
in the belief that it softens the ore and rem
ders it more easy to work. The Indians,
even at the present time, put coca leaves
into the mouths of dead persons, in order to
secure them favorable reception on their
| entrance into another world, and when a
| Peruvian Indian on journey falls in with
a mummy, he, with timid reverence, pres
ents to it some coca leaves as his pious Of
fering."
The coca plant resembles tea and hops in
the nature of its active principles, although
differing entirely from them in its effects.
In the coqueros the latter are not inviting.
''They are" says the traveller just quoted "a
bad breath, pale lips and an ugly black mark
coquero is known at the first glance
his unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his dim
| and Sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring,
his quiyering lips, and his general apathy,
all bear evidence of the baneful effect of the
| coca juice when taken in excess" The gen
eral influence of moderate doses is gently
| soothing and stimulating, but coca has in
| addition special and remarkable power in
| enabling those who consume it to endure
| sustained labor in the absence of other food.
This appears to be well attested fact, and
accords strikingly with similar effects OBJ
served in the consumers of opium.
Both coca and opium, and to less extent
alcohol and tobacco, check waste in the body,
slightly lowering the temperature, and econ
omizing more orless the expenditure of force.
In the case of coca, opium and tobacco, this
is well seen under hard labor and in the alb
sence of food. Alcohol plays as we have al
ready hinted a precisely similar part where
waste and expenditure are excessive as in
some cases of fever. In regard to coca, Won
Tschudi says: "a man was employed by
me in very labOrious digging. During the
five days and nights he was in my service he
never tasted any food, and took only two
hours sleep each night; but at intervals of
two and half or three hours he repeatedly
chewed about half an ounce of coca leaves,
and he keptan acullioco continually in his
mouth. l was constantly beside him, and
therefore ndu Ine opportunity OIL OBSERVING
him. The work for which Iengaged him be-
ing finished, he accompanied me ON two
days journey across the level heights.
Though on foot he kept up with the pace of
my mule, and halted only for the chaccar
(chewingl. On leaving me he declared he
would willingly engage himself again for the
same amount of work, and that he would go
through it without food, if | would allow
him sufficient supply of coca. The village
priest assured me that this man was sixty
two years of age, and that he had never
known him to be i'll in his life
Another special effect of the coca is pro-
duced upon the lungs and breathing The
Peruvian under this drug climbs mountain
passes, and sustains exertion at high attitudes
without breathlessneSs. Europeans in the
same country have derived from coca the
same effect This recalls the accounts of the
peasant mountaineers of Syria, in Austria
These men eat white arsenic, which is OBJ
tanned from the copper mines, and sold by
peddlers throughout this region. 1t is also
given to the horses, and both man and horse
derive the same power-longwin
from its use. In Syria, however, the arsenic
is used by the young women also for the ben
eft of the complexion, which is said to be-
come irresistibly beautiful under it's influ-
ence; but it is not known that coca or opium
or alcohol or any other stimulant narcotic
has any such effect upon the skin, so that we
must look elsewhere for motives to their con-