asked.
‘ Tal vez .’ Maybe.
‘Opthamology? Anaesthesia?’
Juan Andres started walking carefully to the end of the large room, towards the double doors we’d entered by.
‘If they stop us’, I said, ‘we just say we’re lost.’
‘ Claro .’
We walked down a long corridor which smelt of disinfectant. It smelt like my school, like those first experiments with carbon and potassium and hydrochloric acid. The bumbling teacher, a former rugby prop-forward, getting the mix wrong and blowing little shards of glass into his stomach, the red spreading across his white coat, the fumbling for the door, the meandering down the corridor, the collapse and then, minutes later, the replacement teacher, a robotic man whose name I’d forgotten. We stopped under the tiny brass plate that we’d missed on our way in. Departmento opthamologico.
‘Is it open?’
‘ Si si. Is good.’
The ‘department’ consisted of one small room with four desks, two on each side, and bundles of papers piled untidily on a metal rack. The cupboard containing the materials we needed was locked, but Juan Andres opened it carefully with a strange implement that he called un chiave universal - a universal key – and he did it without scratching the lock.
‘ Don’t touch anything you don’t need to touch’, he said.
‘ Prints?’
‘ Si. ’
The cupboard was large enough for both of us, but I left it to Juan Andres to go inside and have a look on the basis that not everything would be labeled in the generic mix of English and Latin, and there would be brand names that he would recognize and that I would not.
Viennese ophthalmologist Karl Koller introduced local anaesthesia for eye-surgery in 1884. Solutions of chloral hydrate, bromide and morphine were unworkable, but after his colleague Freud remarked upon the numbing properties of cocaine, especially when spread across sensitive areas of skin or the gums, Koller realized that these were not unwanted side-effects. In fact, they could become its raison d’etre , a powerful local anaesthetic.
It was perfect for eye surgery, which, prior to the late nineteenth century had been almost impossible. Involuntary spasms, the reflex movements of a patient's eye, made any form of contact extremely difficult. Koller discovered that a few drops of a solution of cocaine would overcome the problem, as well as causing the pupils to dilate, known as mydriasis.
It was also perfect for dentistry because of the way it blocked pain, specifically the signal-conduction in nerves, when injected locally. By the early twentieth century a significant proportion of opthamologists and dentists used cocaine for themselves and for their patients. The problem was its addictiveness, and so in time it was replaced with substances like lidocaine, which had less ‘abuse potential.’ Normally, if any cocaine was kept, it would be in the opthamology department, and, as it was used for medical purposes, it was as close to one hundred percent pure as possible.
‘ Ten grams’, said Juan Andres, carefully lifting out a small glass jar filled with white powder and labeled with a large red skull and cross-bones and exclamation mark. ‘It’s enough.’
***
Kieran came back at eleven with six empanadas and a six-pack of beer and he found us sitting at the rickety pine desk in front of my writing pad.
‘You two getting on like a house on fire’, he said, grinning and tossing the empanadas on Juan Andres’s bed.
‘Thanks, Kieran.’
Juan Andres got up and brought the steaming pastries over to me. The cocaine had worn off just enough for me to feel hungry again.
‘I sure could use some more’, said Kieran. ‘No chance out there. Have to wait, huh?’
We didn’t answer, both of us concentrating on my diagram.
‘ Wanna smoke some more grass?’
‘ Not right now, Kieran.’
‘ Jees. You guys. We’re in fuckin’ Colombia. Meant to be havin’ a good time.’
‘ Were you a dealer, Kieran? I mean, you
‘ Tal vez .’ Maybe.
‘Opthamology? Anaesthesia?’
Juan Andres started walking carefully to the end of the large room, towards the double doors we’d entered by.
‘If they stop us’, I said, ‘we just say we’re lost.’
‘ Claro .’
We walked down a long corridor which smelt of disinfectant. It smelt like my school, like those first experiments with carbon and potassium and hydrochloric acid. The bumbling teacher, a former rugby prop-forward, getting the mix wrong and blowing little shards of glass into his stomach, the red spreading across his white coat, the fumbling for the door, the meandering down the corridor, the collapse and then, minutes later, the replacement teacher, a robotic man whose name I’d forgotten. We stopped under the tiny brass plate that we’d missed on our way in. Departmento opthamologico.
‘Is it open?’
‘ Si si. Is good.’
The ‘department’ consisted of one small room with four desks, two on each side, and bundles of papers piled untidily on a metal rack. The cupboard containing the materials we needed was locked, but Juan Andres opened it carefully with a strange implement that he called un chiave universal - a universal key – and he did it without scratching the lock.
‘ Don’t touch anything you don’t need to touch’, he said.
‘ Prints?’
‘ Si. ’
The cupboard was large enough for both of us, but I left it to Juan Andres to go inside and have a look on the basis that not everything would be labeled in the generic mix of English and Latin, and there would be brand names that he would recognize and that I would not.
Viennese ophthalmologist Karl Koller introduced local anaesthesia for eye-surgery in 1884. Solutions of chloral hydrate, bromide and morphine were unworkable, but after his colleague Freud remarked upon the numbing properties of cocaine, especially when spread across sensitive areas of skin or the gums, Koller realized that these were not unwanted side-effects. In fact, they could become its raison d’etre , a powerful local anaesthetic.
It was perfect for eye surgery, which, prior to the late nineteenth century had been almost impossible. Involuntary spasms, the reflex movements of a patient's eye, made any form of contact extremely difficult. Koller discovered that a few drops of a solution of cocaine would overcome the problem, as well as causing the pupils to dilate, known as mydriasis.
It was also perfect for dentistry because of the way it blocked pain, specifically the signal-conduction in nerves, when injected locally. By the early twentieth century a significant proportion of opthamologists and dentists used cocaine for themselves and for their patients. The problem was its addictiveness, and so in time it was replaced with substances like lidocaine, which had less ‘abuse potential.’ Normally, if any cocaine was kept, it would be in the opthamology department, and, as it was used for medical purposes, it was as close to one hundred percent pure as possible.
‘ Ten grams’, said Juan Andres, carefully lifting out a small glass jar filled with white powder and labeled with a large red skull and cross-bones and exclamation mark. ‘It’s enough.’
***
Kieran came back at eleven with six empanadas and a six-pack of beer and he found us sitting at the rickety pine desk in front of my writing pad.
‘You two getting on like a house on fire’, he said, grinning and tossing the empanadas on Juan Andres’s bed.
‘Thanks, Kieran.’
Juan Andres got up and brought the steaming pastries over to me. The cocaine had worn off just enough for me to feel hungry again.
‘I sure could use some more’, said Kieran. ‘No chance out there. Have to wait, huh?’
We didn’t answer, both of us concentrating on my diagram.
‘ Wanna smoke some more grass?’
‘ Not right now, Kieran.’
‘ Jees. You guys. We’re in fuckin’ Colombia. Meant to be havin’ a good time.’
‘ Were you a dealer, Kieran? I mean, you
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