Ueber coca.

Freud described his observations (with himself as subject) on the effects of cocaine, including its abolition of hunger and fatigue, the “exhilaration and lasting euphoria”. He also described its supposed non-addictiveness, calling it “absolutely harmless in long use”. He later bitterly regretted this misconception, as he himself nearly became addicted, and misuse of the drug contributed to the death of one of his dearest friends. Freud’s suggestion that cocaine might act by abolishing the effect of agencies that depress bodily feeling has since been confirmed, and his recognition of the drug’s anesthetizing qualities may have given Koller the idea to revolutionize eye surgery by using cocaine as the first local anesthetic. See No. 5678. English translation in St. Louis med. & surg. J., 1884, 47, 502-05. Revised second edition by Freud, Vienna, 1885. Also translated in Freud, The Cocaine Papers, Vienna/Zurich, 1963 and Freud, Cocaine Papers, R. Byck (ed.), New York, 1974.