550 CANNABINE^. 



smoke it with tobacco, or swallow it in combination with other 

 substances.^ 



Charas. 



No account of hemp as a drug would be complete without some 

 notice of this substance, which is regarded as of great importance by 

 Asiatic nations. 



Charas or Ghurrus is the resin which exudes in minute drops from 

 the yellow glands, with which the plant is provided in increasing num- 

 ber according to the elevated temperature (and altitude ?) of the 

 country where it grows. The varieties of hemp richest in resin, at 

 least in the Laos country in the Malayan Peninsula, scarcely attain the 

 height of 3 feet, and show densely curled leaves.^ Charas is collected 

 in sevei-al ways : — one is by rubbing the tops of the plants in the hands 

 when the seeds are ripe, and scraping from the fingers the adhering 

 resin. Another is thus performed : — men clothed in leather garments 

 walk about among growing hemp, in doing which the resin of the plant 

 attaches itself to the leather, whence it is from time to time scraped off. 

 A third method consists in collecting, with many precautions to avoid 

 its poisonous effects, the dust which is caused when heaps of dry bhang 

 are stirred about.^ 



By whichever of these processes obtained, charas is of necessity a 

 foul and crude drug, the use of which is properly excluded from civilized 

 medicine. As before remarked (p. 547) it is not obtainable from hemp 

 grown indiscriminately in any situation even in India, but is only to 

 be got from plants produced at a certain elevation on the hills. 



The best charas, which is that brought from Yarkand, is a brown, 

 earthy-looking substance, forming compact yet friable, irregular masses 

 of considerable size. Examined under a strong pocket lens, it appears 

 to be made up of minute, transparent grains of brown resin, agglutinated 

 with short hairs of the plant. It has a hemp-like odour, with but little 

 taste even in alcoholic solution. A second and a third quality of Yar- 

 kand charas represent the substance in a less pure state. Charas viewed 

 under the microscope exhibits a crystalline structure, due to inorganic 

 matter. It yields from l to -^ of its weight of an amorphous resin, 

 which is readily dissolved by bisulphide of carbon or spirit of wine. 

 The resin does not redden litmus, nor is it soluble in caustic potash. It 

 has a dark brown colour, which we have not succeeded in removing by 

 animal charcoal. The I'esidual part of charas yields to water a little 

 chloride of sodium, and consists in large proportion of carbonate ot 

 calcium and peroxide of iron. These results have been obtained in 

 examining samples from Yarkand.^ Other specimens which we have 

 also examined, have the aspect of a compact dark resin. 



Charas is exported from Yarkand^ and Kashgar, the first of which 



* For further information, consult Cooke's now in the Kew Museum. It is by no 

 Seven Sisters of Sleep, Lond., chap. xv. — means evident by what jjrocess they were 

 xvii ; also Jahreaberic/U of Wiggers and collected. 



Husemann, 1872. 600. * Forsyth, Correspondence on Mission to 



* Gamier, Voyaye iV Exploration en Indo- Yarkand, ordered by the House of Com- 

 Chine, ii. {1873) 410. mons to be printed, Feb. 28, 1871 ; also 



■* Powell, Economic Products of the Pun- Henderson and Hume, Lahore to Yarkland, 

 jah, Eoorkee, 1868. 293. Lond. 1873. 334. 



* Obtained by Colonel H. Strachey, and 



