INDIAN HEMP. 
45 
Already Homer speaks ( Odyssey , N., 220-230) of the ex¬ 
hilarating effects; for this is undoubtedly meant by the 
Nepenthes which caused all suffering to be forgotten. Helena 
received it from Egypt, and there hemp was long esteemed 
on account of its intoxicating quality. (Prosp. Alpin., de 
Medic. JEgypt .) Even to this day hemp wine is used by the 
Orientals for the purpose of intoxication. Herodotus men¬ 
tions cloths made from hemp, and refers also to fumigations 
used in Scythia. Galenus was well acquainted with the 
narcotic effects of haschisch; and in a Chinese work, now 
in the great library of Paris, it is stated that a Chinese 
physician, Hoa-Tho, living a.d. 220-230, administered to 
patients he wanted to operate on a medicine prepared from 
hemp, and made them in that way insensible. Rigler says 
a preparation of hemp has been used for the same purpose 
in India since times immemorial; it is there called Esrar — i.e. 
secret. During the Crusades, a Persian, Hassan Ben Ali, 
famous for the number and fanaticism of his soldiers, used 
haschisch to intoxicate and excite them, so that all over Asia 
Mahommedans as well as Christians trembled before them. 
These fellows—exterminated in 1256 by the Mongolian chief, 
Hulakan Khan—received, from their using haschisch, the 
name of Haschischin, Haschaschin. By perversion, that 
word changed into assassin. 
For the sake of the narcotism alone, hemp is extensively 
used at present in a great part of Asia, Africa, and South 
America, either smoked (in Algeria, Morocco, by the Hot¬ 
tentots and Brazilians), or in the form of electuary, confection, 
tincture, pastiles, &c. In spite of the Crusades, this nar¬ 
cotic quality of hemp was not known in France until after 
the campaign in Egypt. England received the first notice of 
it through her physicians practising in the East Indies. In 
Germany, Dr. Molwitz pointed out hemp, in 1818, as a sub¬ 
stitute for opium ; Hahnemann employed it against affections 
of the nervous system. Since 1830 a large amount of in¬ 
formation, regarding especially the power and qualities of 
the Indian hemp, has been published, mostly by English and 
French physicians. 
The few chemical analyses made of the hemp plant, show 
in it a gum, a bitter extractive matter, albumen, chlorophyll, 
ethereal oil (about twelve drops in twenty-eight ounces), and 
a resin called by some cannabin , which appears to be the 
effective ingredient. No alkaloids have been found so far. 
The more important preparations which have been em¬ 
ployed are : for internal use, the powdered herbs, in pills or 
powder; Oriental haschisch—a mixture of the foregoing 
