Cra EXTRACT OF INDIAN HEMP. 
197 
good plant is of a greenish brown, the heads loaded with 
a sticky resin ; the bad is palish brown and does not adhere 
to the ringers. The good extract gives a grass-green tinc- 
ture, the bad a brownish. My extract was made from dried 
plants of good quality, as it cannot be readily obtained fresh 
in Calcutta. 
Mr. Fordred stated, that it had recently come to his 
knowledge that some of the extract, sold in London as ex- 
tract of Indian hemp, was made from the plant grown in 
the neighbourhood of London, and he believed it possessed 
but little, if any, of the narcotic properties of the Indian 
plant,* The extract made from the hemp [Cannabis sa- 
liva) grown at Mitcham, was of a green colour, and being 
apparently an aqueous extract contained but little resin, 
while that prepared from the plant grown in India contained 
a large proportion of resin. He thought it important, as 
many medical practitioners in different parts of the country 
were trying the efficacy of this remedy, that they should be 
cautioned to be particular in obtaining the extract of the 
Indian hemp. 
Mr. Redwood said, that much of the extract made from 
the hemp plant imported from India, as well as the extract 
which had been imported ready made, was found to possess 
but little narcotic power when tried in this country; cer- 
tainly they had not realized the expectations which were 
formed from the accounts of its action given by medical 
*This statement accounts for the remarkable variableness of the 
commercial extract. A few months ago I had occasion to send two 
ounces of extract of Indian hemp to a practising physician in Missis- 
sippi, who wrote back that half an ounce of it produced no sensible 
effect analogous to thetrue drug, whilst two grains of another lot. since 
forwarded, was sufficient for a dose! May not the first article (which 
is known to have come from England) have been prepared from 
English hemp plant ? — W. P. Jr. 
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