Search

After observations concerning the cultivation, the trade and the use of coca by the Peruvian population, several Spanish physicians--among whom MONARDES--had already in the XVIth century, proposed to use this plant as a medicine. Therapeutical experiments however were not effected until the second half of the XIXth century. In 1559 the Italian neurologist MANTEGAZZA was the first to try out the remedy on himself and to advocate the use of coca as an internal medicine. Experiments with cocaine were still made during about twenty years, until more and more therapeutical applications clearly appeared. In psychiatry cocaine was used--also on Freud's recommendation--as an euphoriant excitant in cases of melancholia, both physical and psychic exhaustion and of cachexia. It was further used as a substitution therapy for morphine-addicts. 1884 also meant a break-through for the use of cocaine as a local anesthetic. It was first used in eye-surgery and was applied later on in dentistry and in cases of minor surgery. Local pain-killing injections seems to have been used at the beginning of our century in all sorts of indications. Cocaine was also applied to cure asthma, mountain-sickness, sea-sickness, pregnancy vomiting and all possible sorts of cramping pains. Although in the last years of the XIXth century the medical literature already clearly warned against the danger of therapeutically induced cocaine mania, it is only several years after World War I that the use of cocaine pills for painful diseases of the mouth and of the upper digestion organs still appeared. Between 1880 and 1930, we may assert that cocaine had taken the place of the universal panacea of the Middle Ages, the Theriaca.

The use of coca in pre-hispanic America is confirmed by archeological and artistic sources, such as sculptures, ceramics, fabrics and pictures. The historical and geographical diffusion of these pieces of evidence seems to point to the fact that coca has been a strong element in the union of the different cultures of this continent. Those pieces of evidence were mostly found in a religious bond and indicate towards the divine character awarded to this plant; this divinity will, later on, be confirmed by the Inca's, who will raise it to a god. Owing to its many properties such as its use in the course of initiation rituals and of important celebrations, and seeing its fundamental importance in economy, coca was allowed a manifold value. The investigation of as well the technical (materials, workmanship,...) as the esthetic factors (form, style,...) of the works of art, combined with the study of the cultural background, shows that the use of coca seems to have been a privilege of the upper social classes. It is just from the Inca period (1450-1530) that the whole people could reach to coca, so that its stimulating properties outweighed the symbolic meaning.

The Bengué sugar-coated pills with menthol and cocaine, followed by the "B.M.C. pills" (with borax, methanol and cocaine) were delivered freely at the chemist's shop. The fact that nobody seemed shocked by the free delivery of this dope does not result only from the circumstance that it was allowed by law, but also because, in our countries, in the XIXth century, there were as good as no cases of cocaine mania. Owing to personal experiments, it became known in wide social circles that cocaine was not only an anesthetic and pain-killing remedy, but also an intoxicating drug that can quickly lead to addiction. Physicians began to search for means of eliminating the plague of addiction: a first International Opium-meeting was held in Shanghai in 1909. After that time, international meetings were held in The Hague (1912) and Geneva (1924 and 1925). Strangely enough, we find that in the promulgated laws an exception is made for pharmaceutical products which contain less than 0.2% morphine or less than 0.1% cocaine. When the medical world began to devote more attention to the danger of cocaine mania, the pharmaceutical and the chemical world became alarmed. A synthetic substitute was searched for and found; it should be less toxic and less addicting. The producers of the BMC pills eagerly adopted the new drugs. They replaced cocaine by amylocaine. The name of the pills was changed into BMA pills (borax-menthol-amylocaine). The coat of the pills remained the same and not one single patient ever noticed the substitution!

The first consumers of coca were the Aymara Indians of the Andes mountains. At the beginning, the consumption of coca-leaves was reserved to princes and priests during religious ceremonies. This habit was later extended to the common people. The Spanish invaders judged that this practice was the expression of a "pagan cult" and therefore banned the cultivation of the coca-plant. In the XIXth century, coca and cocaine were used once more in Europe. Freud made self-experiments with cocaine, but he was promptly discouraged by reading about the cases of cocaine mania reported in the American scientific literature. In 1870 Angelo Mariani brought on the market a kind of wine, based on coca extract, which enjoyed a great success in Europe. Hereafter Pemberton produced, in the USA, a competitive drink under the name "Vin français cola", wherein he replaced the wine by a cola extract and where from he finally vanished cocaine. The medical use of cocaine for the treatment of hayfever and asthma (Dr. Tücker's elixir) had in between officially been agreed by the famous scientific societies in America. This treatment was finally abandoned.

Without absolutely any pain, women can live through the whole process of birth-giving thanks to the discovery of cocaine (1860) and the work of surgeons and obstetricians, who invented a whole range of locoregional methods, and the chemists who delivered them safe substitutes for cocaine. It was, as a matter of fact, a long way to go, but the final result was surely worth the effort.

Thanks to the Rolleston Report of 1926, the prescription of opiates and cocaine was allowed in the United Kingdom to physicians who treated addicted people. Until 1960 there were only a few cases per annum. However, this regulation strongly encouraged the immigration of addicts and in specialized clinics great amounts of cocaine were used. This changed speedily when one understood that this was not the right method, and the prescription of cocaine-injections disappeared in 1968. Afterwards began the illegal use of cocaine and greater and greater amounts were seized by Customs and police. The official number of cocaine-addicted people is however very low. At this time, the Police of the United Kingdom cannot yet decide if there is a beginning cocaine-epidemic or if cocaine should still be considered as a secondary drug.