Coca erythroxylon. (Vin mariani.) Its uses in the treatment of disease. With notes and comments by prominent physicians. (offered with) Coca and its therapeutic application. (offered with) Eminent physicians’ portraits and biographical notes.
Paris; New York; Paris: Mariani & Co.,; J. N. Jaros; Mariani, 1884; 1890; n.d. 8vo. [ii], 52, [1] pp.; 78 pp., including a list of physicians (10 pages) who have “been good enough to formally endorse Vin Ma. THIRD EDITION; FIRST EDITION. I: Original publisher’s cloth, title in gilt on front cover.
II: With frontispiece and numerous full-page and text illustrations. Original printed wrappers, stained and soiled; waterstains in margins of second half of the book.
III: With the text portraits of 30 doctors (all men). Woodcut printer’s device, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, illustration on final leaf. Original printed wrappers. Item #20021
Before the twentieth century, regulations did not require manufacturers of ready-made remedies to list ingredients in their medicines. Perhaps taking advantage of the popularity of the drug, Lloyd Manufacturing did advertise the cocaine in their toothache drops. The promised instantaneous relief was likely provided by the anesthetic properties of cocaine. In the late nineteenth century, the typical cocaine user was a professional man who had been prescribed the drug or a physician administering his own doses. Coca wine was the most popular way to consume cocaine. Vin Mariani was the first coca wine product sold, and for a while, the most successful. The coca wine Vin Mariani was later overtaken in popularity by Coca-Cola; pharmacist John Pemberton created the drink as a non-alcoholic alternative to his Peruvian Wine Coca after prohibition was adopted in Atlanta in 1886.
Angelo Mariani (1838-1914) was a chemist and entrepreneur from the island of Corsica. In 1863 he moved to Paris where he set up shop and began experimenting with Erythroxylon coca. Within three years he had mastered the art of extracting cocaine from it. He blended the cocaine with wine, and launched Vin Mariani. He would go international in 1880 when he opened a successful operation in New York. By this point, Mariani had become so successful that his name was a household word throughout America and Europe.
All of the publications from Mariani were intended for the medical profession. In Coca and its therapeutic application, Mariani provides a short account of the history of coca and any experimentation or other investigation of the efficacy of the product. Indeed, the last item offered here is “provided to the medical profession with the compliments of Angelo Mariani.” The short detailed biographies and portraits of a group of French physicians are supplied here along with some fine advertisements of (you guessed it) Vin Mariani. The actual portraits are very well done; each of the physicians of course has written in favor of Mariani. The promotional pamphlet ends with a short article on the specific value of coca, some suggestions as to when to prescribe Vin Mariani, and the dosage. A fantastic example of self-promotion for the time.
Price: $1,250.00