CANNABIS 



HI MP-SEED BATIVA 



Oil-seed 



for thrir li.-iiiL' desi-rilicd as il.irkcr coloim-d. But it is no stretch of 

 Cation to assume that it was the presence of the very minute par- 

 of tin- narcotic tluit, in the story tol<l by Herodotus, made the 

 vthians shout for joy while in their medicated vapour baths. 



description (1787) of the vapour given off by the preparation con- Their 

 ed ly his followers at Surat having overpowered him, might in fact 

 cited as a commentary on the passage in Herodotus. 0. Schrader, in Propty. 



ays the Scythians never washed in water but intoxicated themselves 

 with the smoke of the seeds of hemp. In Persia the seeds are called 

 Sh(ih(l<in<i/t, or Emperor's seeds. Tragus tells us that in Eastern France 

 in his time ( I .">39 A.D.) the seed was cooked daily among other foods such as 



1 mi he adds it was regarded as dangerous if partaken of too liberally other Grains. 

 ret|uently. Paludanus in a footnote to Linschoten's account of 

 p refers (1598) to a mixture eaten in India called bosa or boza which, 

 . consisted of the seeds of Lolium and of hemp (see Eleusine, p. 521 ; 

 >Ialt Liquors, p. 758). Mr. W. Coldstream, for example, informed 

 mmission that the edible preparation known as mura consists of 

 .p-seeds mixed with parched wheat or bathu (A nun-tint it*) or of rice. 

 dit Gunga Datt Upreti spoke of the seeds being cooked in Almora 

 HIT with vegetables. Mr. Dharma Nand Joshi remarked that they make 

 * ables palatable and wholesome. Mr. Anderson spoke of the parched 

 p being mixed with grain and eaten, although, he adds, the mixture 

 etimes affects the eyes in the fashion known of charas. Mr. R. C. 

 1 of Bijapur mentioned that the seeds are employed as an 

 ingredient in chutney. Mr. Minniken observed that in Bashahr the new an 

 ripe seed is mixed with spirit to make it more intoxicating, and 

 Sir Walter Lawrence in his work on Kashmir informs us that " the 

 hemp seeds yield an oil which like charms is iised for intoxicating pur- 

 poses." It may thus be concluded that if the fruits be used without being 

 specially cleaned they may be, and in India apparently often are, so im- 

 pregnated or agglutinated with narcotic that they are distinctly intoxi- 

 _ r . These fully substantiated facts seem to justify the inference that 

 Scythians of old, as do the African bushmen to-day (Burton, Arab, 

 i., 65), became intoxicated by inhaling the volatile narcotic 

 ient oh the seed-coats and adhering particles of the inflorescence, 

 without for centuries thereafter the drug having been isolated or separately 

 ignised. 



Hemp-seed is employed as a food for birds, poultry, etc., and in India 

 >ecially commended as an occasional diet for milch-cows. 



Oil. Hemp-seed when expressed yields 15 to 25 per cent, of a pale limpid Oil. 

 This is at first of a greenish-yellow colour but gradually deepens when ex- 

 to the air. The flavour is described as disagreeable, but the odour as mild. 

 U* sp. gr. ranges from 0-925 to 0'931. It becomes turbid at a temperature of 

 15 C. It absorbs from 143 to 144 per cent, of its own weight of iodine. Its 

 drying properties are good, but in England it is rarely used for paint, though in 

 some parts of Europe, where procurable in abundance (especially in Russia), it 

 is fairly extensively utilised. It is also largely employed as a lamp oil, but its 

 beet use is in the preparation of soft soap. It dissolves in boiling water, and Soft Soap. 

 in 30 parts of cold alcohol. It is sometimes difficxilt to get linseed oil absolutely 

 free from adulteration with hemp-seed oil. The oilcake is used in feeding stock. 

 In tlu- United States hemp is said to yield from 20 to 40 bushels of seed to the Yield. 



The plant requires to be harvested before becoming quite ripe, owing to 

 liability to seeding. The seed loses its germinating power very quickly, hence 

 the stock should be one season old only. It is said that Russia annually produces 

 close on half a million tons. 



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