A Modern Drug for the Modern Era

Cocaine arrived at a time when the nervous system was a central focus of Western medicine and seen as the the bridge between physical and nervous disorders. Particularly prevalent among diagnoses at this time was neurasthenia, a very broadly defined condition of fatigue and irritability thought to be caused by an exhaustion of the nervous system. Many conditions of nervous distress and anxiety now treated through psychiatry fell under their own field of research, neurology. Neurologists had long prescribed drugs with sedative effects, such as opium, but lacked a stimulant stronger than caffeine. Cocaine was seen as the stimulant that would enliven the nervous system and cure perceived fatigue of the nerves.

Cocaine’s initial success was outside the formal medical establishment, as myriad health products, particularly in the U.S., contained cocaine to treat a wide range of ailments, with pain and discomfort often the key symptoms addressed. One of the most popular forms of recreational consumption was that of coca wine, a market dominated by its pioneer, Angelo Mariani. Coca wine was one of many cocaine products marketed to respectable, middle-class households for various forms of treatment and recreation; for Americans living under local prohibition laws, the original Coca-Cola and its mimics proved much more popular until the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) banned cocaine from over the counter products (Spillane, 2000).