2 wk. ago • 98%

Mummified brains show cocaine arrived in Europe far earlier than we thought

www.popsci.com Mummified brains show cocaine arrived in Europe far earlier than we thought

Italians used coca leaves by at least the 17th century.

Link to study the article is based on:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440324001080?via%3Dihub#abs0015

7 comments

That's fascinating. I love reading about these little random discoveries that change the collective thinking on a historical topic, like when Norse artifacts were discovered on North America's east coast and we learned that the Norse had beaten Columbus to the punch by 400 years.

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- Yeah, they just didn't have a flag.
  
  7
  
  Suzy Eddie Izzard, is that you?
  
  https://youtu.be/UTduy7Qkvk8
  
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Medieval crackheads.

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Chewing coca leaves seems to have a long history that continues to this day. I hear it's common practice among long distance drivers of the present and it wouldn't be surprising to find out that this has been the case ever since people made long transits on foot or horseback. Not sure we can call it cocaine though, isn't that term reserved for the hydrochloride salt form of the drug?

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- Not sure we can call it cocaine though, isn't that term reserved for the hydrochloride salt form of the drug?
  
  If these plants were brought back as marvels of the new world, they probably were presented to some sort of royalty or another, and there were a lot of alchemists in 17th century Europe.
  
  Which brings me to my point that I don't think "cocaine" is exclusively for the hydrochloride salt. Sure, freebase cocaine has its own name (crack), but it still is cocaine. So I'd wager a guess saying cocaine is defined as any extract from the plant.
  
  Let's see.
  
  Well some so, yeah. Mostly it's just referring to the alkaloid, but I'd agree with you that chewing leafs doesn't constitute "using cocaine".
  
  Because I'm pretty sure that, say, Bohemian alchemists would've had no trouble making a potent concoction from the leaves. And I mean "Bohemian" and "concoction" in their literal meanings.
  
  Like a tincture of cocaine. Hits like a hammer, easy to make.
  
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- Dental pain.
  
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