Amazon explorer on cocaine operates on himself

Alexander Hamilton Rice Jr, the American explorer, has said in an interview in London that in the course of recent travels in the Amazon he was forced to perform an operation on himself, with the aid of cocaine. The operation lasted two hours and was conducted under candlelight in the forest.

Dr. Hamilton Rice, a surgeon, spent 21 months exploring about 100,000 square miles of jungle, in south-east Colombia and north-west Brazil, that had previously been uncharted. His mission was to map the area and to conduct anthropological studies.