Traces of tobacco found in damaged brain tissue reveal that Europeans were chewing coca leaves – perhaps for medicinal or recreational purposes – in the 17th century, two centuries before the earliest known use of coca. known as a New World plant in the Old World, a new study finds. .
Researchers have discovered the remains of two people buried in a burial pit at the Ospedale Maggiore, a “pioneer hospital” in Milan that served the poor, according to the study, published in the release of October. Journal of Archaeological Science.
Of the approximately 10,000 people buried in the pit, researchers examined the brain cells of nine people who died in hospital in the 1600s and were killed naturally. They performed a toxicological analysis of body tissues with a mass spectrometer, which determines the chemical composition of the sample by measuring its molecular weight. The test revealed three important molecules – cocaine, hygrine and benzoylecgonine – in the brain cells of two people. The presence of purity indicates that the cocaine in their cells comes from coca leaves. Using cocaine salts, the method most commonly used today, does not produce purity.
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Cocaine is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant (Erythroxylum coca), a shrub native to South America. When Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci arrived in what is now Venezuela in 1499, he noticed that the Indians were chewing coca leaves with lime and roasted shells, according to the study. Later, the invading Spaniards realized that the Inca Empire controlled the coca plant and used it for religious, recreational and medicinal purposes.
“In fact, the Inca population considered it a magical and magical plant that has the power to remove hunger and thirst, produces happy effects, can be used as medicine (as a painkiller and pain, aid digestion, treat asthma, stomach pain, chest pain and ulcers, reduce nosebleeds and vomiting), and make a person feel better,” the researchers wrote in the study. that.
Although the Spanish conquistadors learned of the medicinal and recreational properties of coca leaves, they initially kept it a secret as they focused on exporting other treasures, such as gold, silver, sugar and tobacco. But chewing coca leaves enabled the Spanish to work hard in the gold and silver mines, as well as in the fields. The few conquistadors who attempted to export coca leaves to Europe saw their merchandise destroyed during the transatlantic voyage, preventing the introduction of the plant into Europe until the 1800s.
But now, it seems the plant reached Europe before that. Radiocarbon dating of the bones of one of the people who were found to be in possession of cocaine shows that they lived about 350 years ago.
“These laboratory tests do not end only after the arrival of the Erythroxylum spp. about two centuries in Europe, but he also pointed out that some Milanese people encountered this New World plant and chewed or drank its leaves as a tea,” my author in the subject of the study. Gaia Giordanodoctoral student in archaeotoxicology at the University of Milan, told Live Science in an email.
Hospital records at the Ospedale Maggiore do not mention cocaine as a treatment until the 19th century, so it is possible that the two people obtained the coca leaves themselves, the researchers said. The presence of cocaine in the brain suggests that cocaine use occurred when users were close to death. Interestingly, one of the coca users also lived with higher education syphilis and was found to be an opium user in a 2023 study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Giordano thinks that these two people used coca leaves for relaxation or self-medication. He said: “It may have been given as part of medical treatment by doctors not working in the hospital.”
Since the Duchy of Milan was under Spanish rule in the 17th century and was one of the areas of sea trade from the Americas, it is possible that some coca plants arrived in Milan in unknown to the authorities. In the centuries since then, cocaine has spread throughout the world, becoming “a widespread substance of abuse for its psychoactive properties, as well as the cause of 1/5 of the deaths extremes around the world in the 20th century,” the authors wrote in the study.
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