KNOWN today for its notorious reputation in movies and television, cocaine is more often associated with crime than medicine.
But long before it became infamous for the wrong reasons, it had a surprising medical use.
Is it true that cocaine was used as first aid to treat the painful eye condition known as snow blindness, which affected early polar explorers?
VERDICT:
TRUE
During the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration in the early 20th century, explorers faced extreme conditions.
Cocaine was among the now seemingly bizarre items packed in their medical kits, often used as eye drops to ease the pain of snow blindness.
Snow blindness, now known as photokeratitis, is a painful but temporary eye injury caused by intense ultraviolet (UV) light reflected off snow and ice.
The condition damages the outer surface of the eye and can cause severe pain, redness, blurred vision and temporary vision loss.
Scottish doctor and author Gavin Francis noted that British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team carried cocaine during the 1907 to 1909 Nimrod Expedition.
During the Antarctic expeditions, long-term exposure to intense sunshine and snow made it one of the most prevalent health issues that explorers encountered.
Cocaine's numbing qualities made it a popular local anaesthetic in medicine at the time.
While the drug could temporarily relieve the pain, it did not treat the underlying UV damage.
So when medical knowledge advanced, cocaine was later replaced by safer and more effective treatments.
Sources:
https://journals.sagepub.com/
https://drugfoundation.org.nz/
https://nzaht.org/
