Abstract
Cocaine derives from the leaves of coca plants—Erythroxylon coca —which are indigenous to South America. Use of coca leaves may date as far back as 5000 years before the Christian era. Burial sites from 2500 BCE in what is now Peru reveal coca leaves apparently stockpiled to assist the dead in their afterlife.1 Archaeologists have also found evidence that by 1500 BCE our ancestors may have used a liquid coca-leaf compound as an anesthetic during brain surgery. The Incan word for the coca plant, kuka, is the antecedent of our word coca.
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© 1993 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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Gold, M.S. (1993). The History of Cocaine. In: Cocaine. Drugs of Abuse, vol 3. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6033-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6033-9_2
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