“The dried leaves of Erythroxylon Coca Lamarck (Fam. Erythroxylaceae),
known commercially as Huanuco Coca, or of E. Truxillense Rusby, known
commercially as Truxillo Coca, yielding when assayed not less than 0.5
per cent of the ether-soluble alkaloids of coca.” U. S. “The dried
leaves of Erythroxylum Coca, Lam., and its varieties.”
HABITAT.--Cultivated in Peru and Bolivia and introduced into medicine by
Koller in 1884.
DERIVATION.--Cocaine hydrochloride is recovered by agitating an
acidulated alcoholic solution of coca leaves with ether. The etheral
liquid is made alkaline with sodium carbonate and evaporated. The
residue is purified, deodorized, neutralized with hydrochloric acid and
finally crystallized.
PROPERTIES.--A colorless, transparent, monoclinic prism, flaky, lustrous
leaflets or a white crystalline powder; permanent in air, containing no
water of crystallization; odorless; of a saline, slightly bitter taste,
and producing on the tongue a tingling sensation followed by numbness of
several minutes’ duration. Soluble in 0.4 part of water, 2.6 parts of
alcohol and in 18.5 parts of chloroform at 25° C. (77° F.); soluble in
benzine, petroleum benzine and ether. It leaves no residue on
incineration. Its aqueous solution is neutral to litmus paper.
DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 5 to 20 gr.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 3 gr.; dogs,
¹⁄₈ to 1 gr. Not much used internally.
ACTION.--Cocaine in small doses is a cerebral, cardiac, respiratory and
nervous stimulant and dieuretic; overdoses cause delirium with cardiac
and respiratory failure. Cocaine is a powerful local anaesthetic; used
for all animals in 4 to 10 per cent solution, usually a 4 to 6 per cent
solution is strong enough for ordinary operations. Inject under the
skin, into the muscular tissue or over nerve trunks for minor
operations. Applied to such structures as the eye, penis, tongue and
other delicate mucous surfaces as the uterus, vagina, rectum, etc. It
causes profound but temporary anaesthesia over a small area; it causes
rapid and extreme dilation of the pupil.
Cocaine is injected for minor operations to prevent pain, such as
neurectomy, removing tumors, operations on the eyes, tongue, fistulae,
firing, etc. For dogs it should be used with great caution, a two per
cent solution usually being enough and as little as possible being used.
For the horse, as a rule, not more than two drachms of a five per cent
solution should be injected subcutaneously, lest restlessness,
excitement, etc., ensue, which though not necessarily dangerous, may
interfere with the operation.
In using cocaine as a diagnostic agent for lameness, the fact must not
be lost sight of that it is a cerebral stimulant and that if a large
quantity is injected it may cause such a degree of excitement as to make
the patient forget his lameness, thus leading the operator to believe
that the improvement is due to anaesthesia below the point of injection,
when the apparent remission from the lameness is of physical origin.
Cocaine is advantageously used in painful eye affections. Its effects
may be prolonged and the danger of its use lessened by dissolving the
cocaine in a 1 to 1000 adrenalin chloride solution.