Researchers found cocaine in the mummified brain tissue of two individuals who were buried in a 17th-century crypt in Milan, Italy, suggesting that Europe had much earlier experience with cocaine than previously documented.
Along with her colleagues, Gaia Giordano of the University of Milan studied several mummified bodies that died sometime in the 1600s, kept in a crypt in the former Ca’ Granda hospital. When she and her team tested samples of brain tissue, they found traces of cocaine in two of the brains. Typically, the drug wouldn’t be found in the body after a few months, but it was still evident nearly four centuries later.
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“It’s very extraordinary to find that molecule,” Dr. Giordano said.
Coca leaves have long been used for their medicinal benefits, such as alleviating pain and increasing energy. Today, almost 30% of the world’s cocaine comes from Peru, with the coca plant itself dating back 7,000 years.
However, the use of cocaine in Europe wasn’t thought to have taken off until the 19th century, after a German chemist first isolated the drug from the coca plant. Now, this new evidence suggests it’s been around far longer than we previously believed—around 200 years earlier.
It’s unclear when, exactly, coca reached Europe. But Christine VanPool, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, believes Spanish colonizers in South America learned of cocaine’s analgesic properties and spread the word. “I could imagine that scenario where someone got it through just being really sick and seeking help,” she said in an interview.
Benjamin Breen, a historian at the University of California, Santa Cruz, also suggested that coca leaves might have been marketed to Europeans as a medical product. “It’s plausible to me that some coca leaves would have made their way across the Atlantic to Europe as a curiosity,” he said.
Whether it was used medically or recreationally is unclear, but hospital records did not show any proof that doctors administered coca leaves as part of treatment before the 19th century. Nevertheless, those mummies certainly had their share of experience with the drug.
