ABSTRACT
Erythroxylum coca, the coca bush, is a vital part of Aymara Andean culture, and the whole plant is the source of the stimulant and local anaesthetic cocaine, the only naturally occurring local anaesthetic. A popular mode of consumption was coca wine, the most famous of which was Vin Mariani. While the formula was proprietary, the French government published a method for preparing coca wine so that any pharmacist could produce it. Long after cocaine was replaced by procaine (synthesised in 1899) as the local anaesthetic of choice, it was still widely administered orally in combination with morphine for post-operative pain and pain management in terminally ill cancer patients. This mixture was known by a number of names, most famously as the Brompton cocktail after its origins at the Brompton Hospital, and achieved almost mythical status as a palliative remedy until its eventual demise following the work of Robert Twycross in the 1970s.
