The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1896-07-02
peIeterious Effects OF the KoIa Nut

Are BICYCLES counteracting all the ben
ef1cial effects Of their exercise by the use
of drug?
Is the mysterious kola nut, or its pro-
duct, reduced to liquid form, to prove the
undoing of a multitude Of people who
have within the past two or three years
taken to riding the wheel for health's
sake? There seems danger of such
disaster, If the stories by druggists are
true.
The kola drug was virtually unknown
two years ago. Today there is no drug
store of any size or popularity at all
that has not its own preparation of kola,
which it vends to bicycle riders and all
sorts of people who need, or fancy they
need, stimulant for mental or physical
effort. The greater manufacturing drug
firms turn out enormous quantities of
the drug In its various forms. Many of
them cannot manufacture 1t rapidly
enough to supply the call.
Kola is put up in every conceivable
shape. There are kola pills. kola tablets.
kola wines and com binations of kola
with all sorts of other drugs, principally.
however, quinine and cocoa. The kola
LIQUIDS are carried in small TASKS by
bicyclists. and no pair of boomers IS
small enough not to have room for box
of kola tablets which can be taken at
any stage of a bicycle journey without
souls being the wiser
When the fame of kola as stimulant
was first noised in civilization fabulous
tales were told of the marvels of endur-
ance which it had wrought among the
natives of the countries where 1t grew.
The jewellers in the tropics, on both con-
tinents, had known of this wonderful
llola nut-or. more properly, stercula nut
for generations. Its home was mid
Africa, but had been carried to South
Africa and planted there. 1t was about
the size of a chestnut, brown and bitter.
| -I1nrncnH n from
man who chewed it all hunger and all
| fatigue. Miles were as PAGES to him and
| he didn't care whether he ever ate again
| or not.
| The French first began to manufact-
| ure it as a drug. Their soldiers in the
| tropics had used it with wonderful re-
| suits. Soon the military nations of Eu-
| rope We're all experimenting with 1t.
| subjecting men to forced marches and
| lack of food and sleep, with nothing to
| maintain or renew their strength ex-
| cept a few kola nuts. The news of these
| triumphs over fatigue came to this
country. The kola was tried among our
| soldiers on the frontier, and by contest
| ants in athletic events, and the stories
| of it's marvellous terrifying qualities ver-
flied.
| A druggist whose establishment Is
near a bicycle highway said yesterday:
! THE secret of the stimulation provided
| by kola is in the amount of caffeine it
| contains. Caffeine is the active princi-
| pie of coffee. What a stimulant that is
everybody knows. You can understand
| the awful force of kola when tell you
| that it contains three times as much
| caffeine as coffee.
And that is what makes 1t danger
| ous There are coffee drunkards. The
kola drunkard is just three times as
| pitiable an object, and escape for him
is just three times as difficult. Kola was
cob h r1n q,
slave themselves to rum or opium, be-
cause it was announced as a stimulant
without reaction. That is the sheerest
of nonsense. There must be reaction
from the exhilaration of any stimulant.
1.-THE first effect of kola is not pro-
nounced 1t is hardly noticeable. The
man who takes it simply feels refreshed.
but after eight or ten hours the hearts
| action is increased enormously. Then,
| later. in the habitual kola eater or
drnker, the lassitude, the nervous weak
ness, the tremulousness, that ensues
from overdrinking. The difference is
, that with kola the reaction comes on
| more gradually.
1T is in the insidiousness Of the thing
| that the danger lies. 1t does away with
the fatigue that long bicycle ride brings
and pill or wee nip at the tiny flask
will add one-half to the pleasure of a
| days run. When that is thoroughly I'M
| derstood, the next step is a reliance on
| the drug. From that stage the develop
ment of the slavery is easy
And the effects of the kola itself are
aggravated by the alcohol which is used
in making it into liquid form So the
wheelman who has quit drinking and
taken to kola to fortify himself is getting
| rum just the same, although he doesn't
know it. He can become two kinds of
a drunkard, instead of one, and that is
about the only difference"-Sa Fran
| cisco Examiner.