VRTICACEJE. 331 



petioles and are digitate, with linear-lanceolate^ sHarplj- serrated 

 leaflets, tapering to a long smooth point. 



Ganja is the name given to the flowering tops of the female 

 plant. The flowers foi'm erect clustered spikes, often 6 to 8 

 inches long; in the drug, the spikes are compressed^ flat 

 or round, glutinous, and of a brownish-green colour ; they have 

 a peculiar narcotic odour. 



Pure Ch aras is a greenish -brown , moist, resinous mass, 

 having the peculiar odour of the plant, and consists of resin 

 mixed with the hairs and fragments of the leaf. Bazar Charas 

 varies much in quality, some specimens being only very 



partially soluble in spirit, friable, and of an earthy appearance. 

 Sixty grains of the finest Yarkand Charas which we examined 

 left, after exhaustion with spirit, only 13 grains of residue, 

 chiefly hairs of the plant. 



Chemical composition. — The most interesting constituents of 



■ r 



hemp, from a medical point of view, are the resin and the vola- 

 tile oil. The former was first obtained in a state of comparative 

 purity by T. and H. Smith in 1846. {Pharm. Joiini.^ vol. vi., 

 p. 171*) It is a brown, amorphous solid, burning with a bright 

 white flame, and leaving no ash. It has a very potent action 

 when taken internally, two-thirds of a grain acting as a power- 



intoxication 



When 



quan- 



tities of hemp, fresh lots of the latter being used for each opera- 

 tion, a volatile oil lighter than water is obtained, together 

 with ammonia. This oil, according to the observations of 

 Personne (1857) {Joiirru de Pharm., vol, 39, p. 48), is amber- 

 coloured, and has an oppressive hemp-like smelL It sometimes 

 deposits an abundance of small crystals. With due precautions 

 it may be separated into two bodies, the one of which named 

 by Personne Cannahene^ is liquid and colourless, with the formula 

 Qiajj^o^ the other, which is called Hydride of Cannabene, 

 is a solid, separating from alcohol in platy crystals, to which 

 Personne assigns the formula C ' ^ H^^. He asserts that cannabene 

 has indubitably a physiological action^ and even claims it as the 



