^""jSyTisssl™'}  Alkaloid  in  Cannabis  Inclica.  359 
A  NEW  ALKALOID  IN  CANNABIS  INDICA. 
By  Matthew  Hay,  M.  D., 
Demonstrator  of  Practical  Materia  3Iedica,  University  of  Edinburgh. 
PRELIMINARY  NOTICE. 
Cannabis  iiidica,  or  Indian  hemp,  is  exceptional  as  a  narcotic  plant 
in  respect  of  no  alkaloid,  possessing  the  action  of  the  plant,  having  been 
as  yet  separated  from  it.  The  so-called'cannabine  obtained  by  T.  and  H. 
Smith,  of  Edinburgh,  many  years  ago,  and  said  by  them  to  possess  the 
active  and  narcotic  properties  of  the  cannabis,  is  certainly  not  a  pure 
principle,  and  is,  probably,  a  mixture  of  resin  with  varying  proportions 
of  the  narcotic  principle.  It  possesses  almost  solely  the  characters  of 
a  resin,  and  is  described  by  the  Smiths  as  such ;  but  were  it  the  true 
active  part  of  the  plant,  it  is  certainly  far  removed  from  all  other  nar- 
cotic principles,  inasmuch  as  none  of  them  is  chemically  related  to  the 
class  of  resins.  One  specimen  of  cannabin  which  I  obtained  some  time 
ago  from  Merck,  of  Darmstadt,  and  which,  I  was  given  to  understand, 
was  prepared  exactly  according  to  Smith's  process,  possessed  little  or 
no  narcotic  action. 
A  few  years  ago,  Preobraschensky  ('^Pharra.  Zeitsch.  f.  Russland,"  , 
1876,  p.  705)  made  a  chemical  examination  of  a  quantity  of  haschisch 
which  he  brought  with  him  from  China,  whither  in  1873  he  had 
accompanied  an  expedition,  and  was  enabled,  according  to  his  own 
statement,  to  separate  from  it  a  volatile  alkaloid,  which  he  held  to  be 
identical  with  nicotine,  and  which  he  believed  to  be  the  active  part  of 
cannabis.  This,  in  view  of  the  distinctive  and  very  different  action  of 
caimabis,  was  somewhat  remarkable.  It  is  highly  probable,  as  has 
been  suggested  by  DragendorfP  and  Marquiss  Pharm.  Zeitung,'' 
1877),  that  the  haschisch  used  by  Preobraschensky  was  mixed  with 
tobacco,  which  it  often  is  in  Eastern  countries. 
Recently,  Louis  Siebold  and  Bradbury  have  reported  to  the  British 
Pharmaceutical  Conference  (1881)  that,  after  an  elaborate  investigation, 
they  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  of  Dragendorff  and  Marquiss,  and 
that  in  the  course  of  their  investigation  they  made  the  interesting  dis- 
covery that  pure  cannabis  does  actually  contain  a  volatile  alkaloid, 
which  does  not,  however,  possess  the  characters  of  nicotine.  They 
separated  it  in  very  small  quantity,  obtaining  not  more  than  2  grains 
from  10  pounds  of  Indian  hemp.  They  give  to  it  the  name  of  canna- 
binine.    They  record  no  observation  as  to  its  physiological  action ;  and 
