As regards the toxic properties of cocaine, its effects appear to be mild and not cumulative. It causes cessation of respiration,—small doses have an exhilarating effect on the nerve-centres and other parts of the nervous system. In a case of attempted suicide by an apothecary, a dose of 1.5 grammes (23 grains) seemed to have no seriously injurious effect.—Varge’s “Zeitschr.” v.f. 11, 5, p. 222, 1863. A writer in the _British and Colonial Druggist_, Feb., 1885, p. 36, thus describes the effect of a full dose:— “Inasmuch as the writer—whose nervous system is of an almost unfortunate degree of sensitiveness—has taken doses of the hydrochlorate, equivalent, in the aggregate, to no less than 32 grains of cocaine itself within the space of three hours, without (as the present lines sufficiently prove) a fatal result following, this remarkable body cannot fairly be classed among the poisonous alkaloids. Among the chief symptoms induced were increased cerebral activity mounting at intervals into the region of delirium, the latter tendency always subservient to a powerful effort of the will. This continued for five hours, the heart action and breathing being meanwhile slightly increased, but not to any painful extent. At first the muscular powers appeared to be enhanced, heavier weights being lifted without undue stress than is ordinarily the case, while the reflective faculties—as instanced by ability to read and form conclusions upon novel scientific matter—seemed stimulated. An hour after the entire quantity named had been taken, the sensibility of the limbs to external influences—which had gradually diminished from the first—became materially lowered, and neither pinches, pricks, nor slight burns with a heated wire could be felt upon the fleshy portions of the arms or legs. The trunk, however, never lost its sensibility to pain in any marked degree. “Slight convulsive movements and a sensation of bodily torpor succeeded, giving way about the eighth hour to considerable somnolency. No special desire, or distaste, for food was noticeable, but sleep overcame all other symptoms between ten and eleven hours from the commencement, and continued for thirteen hours afterwards; a slight feeling of dizziness was experienced on waking, but this gradually wore off, and had entirely disappeared twenty-four hours later.” By physiologists, it had been supposed that cocaine would have properties allied to, if not identical with, caffeine, theme, or theobromine, in the manner that these themselves are allied. But, chemically, cocaine is quite distinct; it is much less soluble in water than caffeine; it is a strong base, which caffeine is not, and its chemical constitution and derivatives are quite distinct from those of caffeine. As a medicine, the coca leaf has been more used in France and America than in England.