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[[Cocaine]] is an alkaloid extracted from coca leaves, which has been used in [[medicine ]] for its analgesic and anesthetic properties.

[[Cocaine]] was first used as an anesthetic [[agent ]] in [[Vienna ]] in 1884.

[[Freud]] conducted research into the [[physiological ]] [[action ]] of the drug with a view to using it for therapeutic purposes.

Years later [[Freud]] described the [[situation ]] in these [[terms]]: "A side interest, though it was a deep one, had led me in 1884 to obtain from Merck some of what was then the little-known alkaloid cocaine and to study its physiological action... I suggested, however, to my friend Köningstein, the ophthalmologist, that he should investigate the question of how far the anaesthetizing properties of cocaine were applicable in diseases of the eye" (1925d, pp. 14-15).

Ernest [[Jones ]] (1953) reports that in 1884 [[Freud]] administered injections of cocaine to his friend Ernst von Fleischl in [[order ]] to wean him off his morphine [[addiction ]] and to ease his terrible trigeminal neuralgia.

One year later he observed that the massive doses of cocaine required by Fleischl had led to chronic [[intoxication]].

He thus discovered the toxicity of [[cocaine]], which stood in the way of its [[being ]] used medically.

[[Psychoanalysis]] has studied the underlying dynamics and the [[unconscious]] [[fantasies]] that [[drive ]] [[patient]]s to seek out the chemical and physiological effects of [[cocaine]] in a compulsive manner.

[[Patients ]] sometimes seek out this toxic substance as a stimulant or an anti-depressant in order to conceal states of [[depression]].

Some drug addicts unable to [[work ]] through their grief develop pathological [[mourning ]] wherein they [[identify ]] with the lost [[dead ]] [[object]](s), thus [[unconsciously ]] putting their lives in grave [[danger]].

Their repeated risk taking allows [[them ]] to feel as if they are conquering [[death]] and are being resuscitated.

This fantasied resurrection represents success to these addicts, in whose [[mental ]] [[state ]] the [[psychological ]] notions of danger, [[death]], and [[suicide ]] do not [[exist]].

The [[psychoanalytic]] [[interpretation]] therefore must direct itself to the uncovering and [[interpreting ]] of their resurrection fantasies and thus lead them to give up [[living ]] within a dead object or give up [[identifying ]] with a dead person.

* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1925d). An autobiographical study. SE, 20: 1-74.