THE SPECIFIC VALUE OF COCA Happily the world grows wiser as it grows older, and early errors serve merely as illustrations of the narrowness which has been broadened by time intermixed with brains and knowledge. There has recently appeared a timely and exhaustive work entitled, "Peru: History of Coca, the Divine Piant of the Incas," published by J. H. Vail & Co., New York City, in which Dr. W. Golden Mortimer, of New York, has traced the early errors of ignorance and prejudice which have surrounded Coca. The author has told in a way that is charmingly entertaining to the reader the associations and use of this marvelous plant from the earliest period of its history to the present time, and has fully explained. the marked difference between the properties of the whole coca leaf and merely one of its alkaloids, such as cocaine. For, as is shown, coca contains several alkaloids, each differing in physiological action, and potent as may be cocaine as a remedy, it can in no instance represent the qualities of the whole coca. This is one reason why imitations of our original preparations of coca fail to fulfill what the true coca should do, as is properly represented in Vin Mariani, which was the pioneer of all coca preparations, and has really served to popularize the use of coca and at the same time stimulating respiration and giving the muscular system more strength, rendering breathing fuller, deeper, and slower. Sexually, coca has long been regarded as a tonic by the natives who use it. Scientific reason for this is found in a study of its physiological action through its influence on mind, nerves, muscles, heart and circulation. The nutrient value of coca, which we have long advocated, is undoubted for support in emergency. This is further shown in the report, previously referred to (p. 506), by seventy-seven physicians, representing more than twenty per cent. of the observers who employed coca in wasting diseases in the absence of all other foods, during periods ranging from three days to several months. The favorite preparations of coca employed, as testified by two hundred and seventy-six physicians, is shown to be: Tineture, 4; infusion, 7; solid extract, 15; leaves, 20; fluid extract, 104; and wine, 229. More than eighty per cent. of all the reports received advocating the use of wine, and "in a majority of instances the wine prepared by Mariani has been particularly referred to as embodying the true qualities of coca" (p. 507). 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