• Headache of high altitudes
• Craving for tobacco or alcohol
• Shortness of breath in athletes

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Coca leaves, Bolivian coca, Erythroxylon coca
Family: Erythroxylaceae
Prover: Clotar Mueller

Introduction and History: It is the divine plant of the Incas. Coca has been used for centuries by natives of west South America as an intoxicant and also as a remedy for ‘Veta’, a condition induced in people on coming to live in high tablelands; faintness, throbbing ears and head, dysentery. Coca is like tea and coffee in affecting tissue changes, especially for those who take it for unusual fatigue.

Dr J. W. Springthorpe described a variety of these symptoms experienced by himself and recorded them in a paper titled ‘The Confession of the Cocanist.’ He called it ‘Hunting the Cocaine Bag.’ ‘You imagine’, he says, ‘that in your skin are worms or similar things, moving along. If you touch them with wool, especially absorbent wool, they run away and disappear, only to peep cautiously out of some corner to see if there is any danger. These worms are projected only on the Cocainist’s own person or clothing. He sees them on his linen in his skin, creeping along his pen holder, but not on other people or things and not on clothes brought clean from laundry.’

Coca is the MOUNTAINEER’S REMEDY.

Preparation and Parts Used: It is prepared from the tincture of the leaves.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is suited to old people. Short breathed people; weak, nervous, fat, plethoric people. Children with marasmus.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): It mainly acts on respiratory organs, ears, rectum, heart, gums, etc.

Ailments From: Ascending, high altitude.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Mental prostration alternating with exhilaration.
2. Patient is timid, bashful, ill at ease in society, craves solitude and obscurity.
3. Sense of impending ordeal.
4. Hallucinations of hearing, unpleasant about himself.
5. Loquacious excitement with blissful visions.
6. Mental depression and drowsiness.
7. GREAT MENTAL EXCITEMENT.
8. Sense of right and wrong abolished.
9. Patient is irritable; delights in solitude and obscurity.
10. Patient has muddled feelings in the brain.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Cravings: Longing for alcoholic liquors and tobacco; for the accustomed stimulants.

Aversions: Aversion to solid foods.

Appetite and thirst: Retards hunger and thirst.

Respiratory insufficiency: Want of breath in those engaged in athletic sports, shortness of breath, in old people, in those who use tobacco and whisky to excess.

Haemoptysis: Haemoptysis with oppression of chest and dyspnoea.

Sleep: Patient is sleepy but cannot find rest anywhere.

Palpitation: Violent palpitation from incarcerated flatus, from overexertion, from heat Strain.

Bad effects: Bad effects from mountain climbing or ballooning; of stimulants, alcohol, tobacco.

Caries: It prevents caries of teeth.

Important Characteristic Features

Respiratory complaints: It is indicated in altitude sickness. There is want of breath, worse by ascending, high altitudes. Cough from cold air or walking fast. Short of breath, especially in aged athletes and alcoholics. Hawking small, transparent pieces of mucous. Haemoptysis. Spasmodic type of asthma. Worse excess alcohol and tobacco, at high altitudes.

General Modalities

Aggravation: From cold air, mental or physical exertion, walking, sitting, salty food, from climbing mountains.

Amelioration: From wine, quick motion in open air, riding in open air, after sunset, lying on the face.

Remedy Relationships

Antidoted by: Gundlach discovered the best antidote to be Gels.

Therapeutic Value: Altitude sickness, Angina pectoris, Asthma, Chronic constipation, Cough, Deafness, Debility, Fever, Haemorrhoids, Heart disease, Mountain sickness, Rheumatism, Scrofula, Scurvy, Weakness of voice.