Meanwhile, researchers continued to investigate the new drug’s potential as a topical anesthetic. Doctors performing delicate operations on eyes discovered that cocaine numbed tissues, allowing them to perform surgery with only minor discomfort to the conscious patient, who could continue to move the eye as directed. The use of cocaine soon spread to surgery of other body parts, including the ears, nose, and mouth. Not only did cocaine numb the targeted area, but the patient remained awake. This allowed the doctors to converse with their patients during surgery, which helped the doctors to monitor their progress. Several pharmaceutical companies noted the success of cocaine as an anesthetic and during the 1880s began selling large amounts of the drug to hospitals.

Other physicians saw cocaine as possibly benefiting mental patients. In 1884, for example, the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud performed his own study of cocaine. Based on that study, Freud published a paper, Tiber Coca, in which he recommended the use of cocaine to treat a variety of conditions, including depression, morphine addiction, digestive disorders, and asthma. Freud tried taking cocaine himself and noted cocaine’s effects as a mental stimulant and as an appetite depressant.

As cocaine became more commonly used, pharmaceutical companies perfected its manufacture and refinement. By the end of the nineteenth century, companies were producing thousands of pounds of the drug each year. Cocaine, it appeared, was a drug with unlimited potential.

Freud on Cocaine

In 1883 Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud read a study in a German medical journal about the beneficial effects of cocaine on German soldiers. He was fascinated by the elevating effects of the drug on soldiers’ energy levels and decided to perform his own experiments, with himself as subject. At the website of BLTC Research, David Pierce reports that Freud wrote in his personal journal, “I take very small doses of it regularly and against depression and against indigestion, and with the most brilliant success.” In 1884 Freud wrote Uber Coca, in which he describes the effects from injection of cocaine in research animals as “the most gorgeous excitement.”

When describing the effects of cocaine on humans in Uber Coca, Freud reported that humans experience

exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person…. You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work…. In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug…. Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue… This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcohol…. Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of, the drug.

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