Coca and Cocaine

Chapter 4: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

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About This Book

The work surveys early and later accounts of the plant and its traditional leaf use, outlines botanical characteristics and methods of cultivation and drying, and collects traveler observations on its stimulant and appetite-suppressing effects. It summarizes pharmaceutical preparations and recipes, presents chemical analysis of the chief alkaloid and its salts with tests for purity, and reviews reported medical applications including topical anesthetic uses, modes of dispensing, and economic considerations, while noting potential misuse and offering practical guidance for selection and storage of material.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The text has been revised; the views of physiologists, therapeutists, oculists, and surgeons generally have been brought up to date; those of chemists of the constitution of Cocaine have been epitomized, and pharmaceutical and chemical notes have been added on the modes of dispensing and testing the purity of Hydrochlorate of Cocaine. Being printed in larger type than the first edition, I trust it may be more acceptable to general medical readers.

W. M.

January, 1892.