Coca-erythroxylon coca
Erythroxylum coca · Coca,Erythroxylum coca · Plant · Erythroxylaceae
Coca is most appropriate for people who alternate between complete exhaustion and great mental excitement. They may be timid and antisocial, and have a sense of impending death and auditory hallucinations, or they may be extremely talkative and experience blissful visions. Their brains may feel muddled, and they can lose their sense of right or wrong and neglect their appearance. It is often used for symptoms associated with altitude sickness. Athletes and elderly people with symptoms of breathlessness or asthma may also be treated with Coca, since the classic physical symptom picture includes breathlessness.
Key symptoms
- Noises in ear
- Headaches of high altitudes
- Want of breath, short breath
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
The Divine Plant of the Incas-but the Spanish priests denounced it as "un delusion del demonio"
The mountaineer's remedy. Useful in a variety of complaints incidental to mountain climbing, such as palpitation, dyspnœa, anxiety and insomnia. Exhausted nervous system from physical and mental strain. Caries of teeth. Loss of voice.--Give 5-6 drops, every half hour, two hours before expected demand on voice. Nocturnal enuresis. Emphysema (Quebracho).
Mind
Melancholy; bashful, ill at ease in society, irritable, delights in solitude and obscurity. Sense of right and wrong abolished.
Head
Fainting fit from climbing mountains. Shocks coming from occiput with vertigo. Noises in ear. Headache with vertigo, preceded by flashes of light. Like a band across forehead. Diplopia. Tongue furred. Headaches of high altitudes. Tinnitus.
Stomach
Peppery sensation in mouth. Longing for alcoholic liquors and tobacco. Great satiety for a long time. Incarcerated flatus; rises with noise and violence, as if it would split the œsophagus. Tympanitic distention of abdomen. No appetite but for sweets.
Heart
Palpitation, with weak heart and dyspnœa.
Male
Diabetes, with impotency (Phos ac).
Respiratory
Hawking of small, transparent pieces of mucus. Weak vocal cords. Hoarseness; worse after talking. Want of breath, short breath, especially in aged athletes, and alcoholic users. Hæmoptysis. Asthma, spasmodic variety.
Sleep
Can find no rest anywhere, but sleepy. Nervousness and nightly restlessness during teething.
Modalities
Better, from wine; riding, quick motion in open air. Worse, ascending, high altitudes.
Relationship
Compare: Ars; Paulin; Cyp; Chamom.
Antidote: Gels.
Dose
Tincture to third attenuation.
Erythroxylon coca. N. O. Lineæ (suborder Erythroxyleæ). Tincture of leaves. Solution or trituration of the alkaloid, Cocaine.
Clinical
Angina pectoris. Asthma. Constipation, chronic. Cough. Deafness. Debility. Fever. Heart disease. Hæmorrhoids. Mountain-sickness, or Veta. Rheumatism. Scrofula. Scurvy. Voice, weakness of.
Characteristics
Coca has been used for centuries by natives of West South America as an intoxicant; and also as a remedy for "Veta," the condition induced in persons on coming to live in high tablelands:─faintness, throbbing heart and head, dysentery, &c. It is like tea and coffee in arresting tissue-change, and enabling those who take it to undergo unusual fatigues. Like China it produces ringing in the ears and deafness and also fever. The alkaloid Cocaine is the well-known local anæsthetic. A characteristic symptom of Cocaine poisoning is a sensation as if small foreign bodies were under the skin, generally like grains of sand; or else as of a worm under the skin. This is undoubtedly …
For persons who are wearing out under the physical and mental strain of a busy life; who suffer from exhausted nerves and brains (compare, Fluor. ac.). Melancholy, from nervous exhaustion; bashful, timid, ill at ease in society. Sad, irritable; delights in solitude and obscurity. Longing for alcoholic liquors and tabacco; for the accustomed stimulants. Want of breath: in those engaged in athletic sports; shortness of breath, in old people; in those who use tabacco and whiskey to excess. Haemoptysis, with oppression of chest and dyspnoea. Sleepy, but can find no rest anywhere. Violent palpitation: from incarcerated flatus (Arg. n., Nux); from overexertion; from heart strain (Arn., Bor., Caust.). Bad effects: from mountain climbing or ballooning (Ars.); of stimulants, alcohol, tabacco. Prevents caries of teeth.
Phatak's chapter on Coca-erythroxylon coca is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
