732 On the preparation of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah. [Sept. 



Art. VII. — Extract from a Memoir on the Preparations of the Indian 

 Hemp, or Gunjah, (Cannabis Indica) their effects on the Animal 

 system in Health, and their utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and 

 other Convulsive Diseases. — By W. B. O'Shaughnessy, M. D. Pro- 

 fessor in the Medical College of Calcutta, fyc. fyc* 



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 depra- 

 ved, as the ready agent of a pleasing intoxication. In the popular me- 

 dicine of these nations, we find it extensively employed for a multitude 

 of affections. 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 Hahneman, as shewn in 

 a subsequent extract, I have been unable to trace any notice of the em- 

 ployment of this drug in Europe. 



Much difference of opinion exists on the question, whether the 

 Hemp so abundant in Europe, even in high northern latitudes, is iden- 

 tical in specific characters with the Hemp of Asia Minor and India. 

 The extraordinary symptoms produced by the latter depend on a 

 resinous secretion with which it abounds, and which seems totally 

 absent in the European kind. The closest physical resemblance or 

 even identity exists between both plants — difference of climate seems 

 to me more than sufficient to account for the absence of the resinous 



* Read before the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, on the 2d October, 

 1839. 



We have extracted from this paper the sections relative to the popular uses and the 

 effects on the animal system of these singular and valuable narcotics— for the professional 

 details of cases, which we considered unsuited to our pages, we have to refer the reader 

 to the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society, current volume, fasciculus, 

 lor November, 1839.— Eds. 



