On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gujah (Cannabis Indica): THEIR EFFECTS ON THE ANIMAL SYSTEM IN HEALTH, AND THEIR UTILITY IN THE TREATMENT OF TETANUS AND OTHER CONVULSIVE DISEASES.

Excerpt: 'The narcotic effects of hemp are popularly known in the South of Africa, South America, Turkey, Egypt, Asia Minor, India, and the adjacent territories of the Malays, Burmese, and Siamese. In all these countries hemp is used in various forms, by the dissipated and depraved, as the ready agent of a pleasing intoxication. In the popular medicine of these nations, we find it extensively employed for a multitude of affections, especially those in which spasm or neuralgic pain are the prominent symptoms. But in Western Europe its use, either as a stimulant or as a remedy, is equally unknown. With the exception of the trial, as a frolic, of the Egyptian “hasheesh,” by a few youths in Marseilles, and of the clinical use of the wine of hemp by Hahnemann, as shown in a subsequent extract, I have been unable to trace any notice of the employment of this drug in Europe.'