HERBA CANNABIS. 547 



In a medicinal point of view, there is a wide dissimilarity between 

 hemp grown in India and that produced in Europe, the former being 

 vastly more potent. Yet even in India there is much variation, for, 

 according to Jameson, the plant grown at altitudes of 6000 to 8000 

 feet affords the resin known as Charas, which cannot be obtained from 

 that cultivated on the plains.^ 



History — Hemp has been propagated on account of its textile fibre 

 and oily seeds from a I'emote period. 



The ancient Chinese herbal called Rh-yd, written about the 5th cen- 

 tury B.C., notices the fact that the hemp plant is of two kinds, tlie one 

 producing seeds, the otlier flowers only." In Susruta, Charaka and 

 other early works on Hindu medicine, hemp (B'hanga) is mentioned 

 as a remedy. Herodotus states that hemp grows in Scythia both 

 wild and cultivated, and that the Thracians made garments from 

 it which can hardly be distinguished from linen. He also describes 

 how the Scythians expose themselves as in a bath to the vapour 

 of the seeds thrown on hot coals.^ 



The Greeks and Romans appear to have been unacquainted with 

 tlie medicinal powers of hemp, unless indeed the care-destroying 

 ^rjTrei'Oe? should, as Royle has supposed, be referred to this plant. 

 According to Stanislas Julien,* ansesthetic powers were ascribed by the 

 Chinese to preparations of hemp as early as the commencement of the 

 3rd century. 



The employment of hemp both medical and dietetic appeal's to have 

 spread slowly through India and Persia to the Arabians, amongst whom 

 the plant was used in the early middle ages. The famous heretical sect 

 of Mahomedans, whose murderous deeds struck terror into the hearts 

 of the Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries, derived their name 

 of Hashishin, or, as it is commonly written, assassins, from hashish the 

 Arabic for hemp,^ which in certain of their rites they used as an in- 

 toxicant." In 1 28G of our era, the Sultan of Egypt, Bibars al Bondokdary, 

 prohibited the sale of hashish, the monopoly of which had been 

 leased before.' 



The use of hemp (bhang) in India was particularly noticed by Garcia 

 de Orta * (1563), and the plant was subsequently figured by Rheede, who 

 described the drug as largely used on the Malabar coast. It would seem 

 about this time to have been imported into Europe, at least occasionally, 

 for Berlu in his Treasury of Drugs, 1690, describes it as coming from 

 Bantam in the East Indies, and " of an infatuating quality and 'per- 

 nicious use." 



It was Napoleon's expedition to Egypt that was the means of again 



^ Journ. of the Agrk. and Hortlc. Soc. of * The miscreant who assassinatedJustice 



India, viii. 167. Norman at Calcutta, 20 Sept. 1871, is said 



^ Bretschneider, On Chinese Botanical to have acted undertheinfluence of Aas/aWj. 



Works, \S~,0. 5. 10. Part of the Rh-ya Bellew (Indus to the Tigris, 1874. 21S) 



Vras written in the 12th cent. B.C. states that the Afghan chief who murdered 



* Eawlinson's translation, iii. (1859) book Dr. Forbes in 1842, had for some days pre- 

 4, chap. 74-5. viously been more or less intoxicated with 



* Vomptts Rendits, xxviii. (1849) 195. Charas or Bhang. 



* Hence the words assassin and assassi- '' Quatremere, Memoires sur CEgi/pte ii. 

 nate. Weil, however, is of opinion that (1811)504, according to Makrisi. 



the word assassin is more probably derived ' Colloquies dos simples e drogas e cousas 



from sikkin, a dagger. — Geschichte der medicinaes da India, ed. 2, Lisboa, 1872, 

 Chalifen, iv. (1860) 101. 27. 



