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Coca

Erythoxylum coca

 

 

 

 

Names

History

Constituents

Uses
E. truxillense,(From the Erythroxylacea family)-erythoxylum novogranatense(Columbian coca),personified by the Incas as"Mama Coca",Huanuco cola (Bolivia),L.O.Linaceae.
In South America, coca leaf has been used traditionally as a chew, in comb-ination with the lime of roasted seashells (Colombia)or with amaranth stalk, which is high in calcium(Huancavalca,Peru).

Coca is clipped to 2 metres in height as shrubs and the leaves collected and sun-dried, then packed in bags. Shrubs are productive for over fifty years.

Before fears about narcotics, coca was used in Coca Cola drink.Cocaine was extracted fom the leaf tea used after 1904. Coca Cola was first made in wine, and called "an intellectual beverage'.
When sugar syrup replaced the wine it became known as "the Temperance Drink".

Sigmund Freud,in the early twentieth century, used cocaine for hysterical frigidity in his female patients.
hygrine,hygroline
cuscohygrine
dihydrocuscohygrine
tropacocaine (3b benzoyloxytropane)
crystalline glycosides
cocatannic acid
leaf contains several alkaloids, the most important:
cocaine.cinamyl-cocaine,x and b truxilline,vitamins C, B1, and Riboflavin,proteins,mineral salts, anamyl cocaine,cocamine.
fresh or dried leaf:

stimulant or tonic.

With lime or ash, chewed for:

fatigue,feelings of hunger,relief of gastric pain,nausea or vomiting.
Cerebral and muscular stimulant,chew, wine, lozenges,may prevent scurvy,to relieve pain of arthritis,headache and rheumatism.

Cocaine is used in ear, nose and throat surgery only.

Novocaine is used in Dentistry.

Illegal recreational drug

tonic in neurasthenia.

Contra-Indications


Cocaine used recreationally habituates and causes quite massive brain injury .
Use of the leaf is dangerous.
Cocaine is a general protoplasmic poison,it has a special affinity for nerve tissue. Used as a powerful local anaesthetic, therefore when used to excess causes convulsions, tremors, hallucinations and restlessness.
Coca addicts suffer from emaciation, loss of memory, sleeplessness and delusions.
Addiction can cause occipital lobe damage with ghastly visual associations. (nb: this is from meditation on cokers plus third year biopsychology:They get lacey occipital lobes (lacey means full of holes!) from brain injury to the actual autonomic functions, and end up seeing SH all over their faces.) Do you really need that effect?



 

Cool References
NAME  ADDRESS ABOUT 
Tairona Heritage Studies Centre
www.lamp.ac.uk/tairona/a8coca.html
 good article with bio-references on coca principles and health
Coca Cola
www.cocacola.com
 really nice web design, connections to Heritage Coke arts
Herb research
www.herbs.org/greenpapers/stimulant.html
 pros and cons-the beverage
Collect coke bottles?
www.antiquebottles.com/wants.html
 Write Reg and Steve

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