........................................................................................................................................
In June of 1885, New York’s American Agriculturist
magazine published that “The discovery that Cocaine will produce local
anaesthesia, or insensibility to pain, is next in importance to the
discovery of the properties of ether.” The article cites the genus of
the Coca shrub (left) as Erythroxylon [sic] which
means “red-wood.” In 1885, a pound (454 g) of dried coca leaves sold for
$1. However, at 1/7000 of that weight, a grain (65 mg) of cocaine
isolated from the coca leaf (right) also sold in 1885 for that same $1, which is more than $25 in today’s U.S. dollars. The American Agriculturist
notes that in “view of the probable increased demand for Coca, … our
Department of Agriculture [should] consider the possibility of
successfully cultivating the shrub within our territory.” (Copyright ©
the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H.,
Honorary Curator, ASA’s Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology,
Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western
Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
