AN ESSAY ON
HASHEESH
INCLUDING
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS
BY
VICTOR ROBINSON
_Contributing Editor, Medical Review of Reviews_,
_Pharmaceutical Chemist, Columbia University_,
_Member of the American Chemical Society_,
_Author of_ “_Pathfinders in Medicine_.”
[Illustration]
MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS
TWO HUNDRED AND SIX BROADWAY
NEW YORK
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912
BY MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS
“What is left for us modern men? We cannot be Greek now.
The cypress of knowledge springs, and withers when it comes
in sight of Troy; the cypress of pleasure likewise, if it
has not died already at the root of cankering Calvinism;
the cypress of religion is tottering. What is left?
Science, for those who are scientific. Art for artists; and
all literary men are artists in a way. But science falls
not to the lot of all. Art is hardly worth pursuing now.
What is left? Hasheesh, I think: Hasheesh of one form or
another. We can dull the pangs of the present by living the
past again in reveries or learned studies, by illusions
of the fancy and a life of self-indulgent dreaming. Take
down the perfumed scrolls; open, unroll, peruse, digest,
intoxicate your spirit with the flavor. Behold, here is
the Athens of Plato in your narcotic visions; Buddha
and his anchorites appear; the raptures of St. Francis
and the fire-oblations of St. Dominic; the phantasms of
mythologies; the birth-throes of religion, the neurotism of
chivalry, the passion of past poems; all pass before you
in your Maya world of hasheesh, which is criticism.”--JOHN
ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
An Essay on Hasheesh
INCLUDING OBSERVATIONS AND
EXPERIMENTS.
By VICTOR ROBINSON.
“And now, borne far thru the steaming air floats an odor,
balsamic, startling; the odor of those plumes and stalks
and blossoms from which is exuding freely the narcotic
resin of the great nettle. The nostril expands quickly, the
lungs swell out deeply to draw it in: fragrance once known
in childhood, ever in the memory afterward, and able to
bring back to the wanderer homesick thoughts of midsummer
days in the shadowy, many-toned woods, over into which is
blown the smell of the hemp-fields.”
ALLEN: _The Reign of Law_.
“At the mere vestibule of the temple I could have sat and
drunk in ecstasy forever, but lo! I am yet more blessed. On
silent hinges the doors swing open, and I pass in.”
LUDLOW: _The Hasheesh Eater_.
Ailing man has ransacked the world to find balms to ease him of his
pains. And this is only natural, for what doth it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose his digestion? Let the tiniest nerve
be but inflamed, and it will bend the proudest spirit: humble is a
hero with a toothache! It is doubtful if Buddha himself could have
maintained his equanimity with a bit of dust on his conjunctiva.
Cæsar had a fever--and the eye that awed the world did lose its
lustre, and the tongue that bade the Romans write his speeches in
their books cried like a sick girl. Our flesh is heir to many ills,
and alas when the heritage falls due. Even pride and prejudice are
then forgotten, and Irishmen in need of purgatives are willing to use
rhubarb grown on English soil, while the Foreign Colombo gathered by
the feral natives in the untamed forests of Quilimani is consumed by
ladies who never saw anything wilder than a Fabian Socialist.
The modern descendant of Hippocrates draws his Materia Medica from
the uttermost ends of the earth: linseed from busy Holland and
floretted marigold from the exotic Levant; cuckoo’s cap from little
Helvetia, and pepper-elder from ample Brazil; biting cubebs from
spicy Borneo and fringed lichens from raw-winded Iceland; sweet flag
from the ponds of Burmah, coto bark from the thickets of Bolivia,
sleeping nightshade from the woods of Algeria, brownish rhatany
from the sands of Peru, purple crocus from the pastures of Greece,
aromatic vanilla from the groves of Mexico, golden seal from the
retreats of Canada, knotty aleppo from the plains of Kirghiz,
fever-tree from the hills of Tasmania, white saunders from the
mountains of Macassar. Idols are broken boldly nowadays, but the
daughter of Æsculapius does not fear, for Hygeia knows she will
always have a frenzied world of worshippers to kneel at her every
shrine in every land.
All the reservoirs of nature have been tapped to yield medicines for
man. From the mineral kingdom we take the alkali metals, the nitrogen
group, the compounds of oxygen, the healing waters, the halogens, the
nitrate of silver, the sulphate of copper, the carbonate of sodium,
the chloride of mercury, the hydroxide of potassium, the acetate of
lead, the citrate of lithium, the oxide of calcium, and the similar
salts of half a hundred elements from Aluminium to Zincum.
From the vegetable kingdom we extract the potent alkaloid; all things
that blossom and bloom, we knead them as we list: the broad rhizome
of iris, the wrinkled root of lappa, the inspissated juice of aloes,
the flower-heads of anthemis, the outer rind of orange, the inner
bark of cinnamon, the thin arillode of macis, the dense sclerotium of
ergot, the ovoid kernel of nutmeg, the pitted seed of rapa, the pale
spores of club-moss, the spongy pith of sassafras, the bitter wood of
quassia, the smoothish bark of juglans, the unripe fruit of hemlock,
the fleshy bulb of scilla, the brittle leaves of senna, the velvet
thallus of agaric, the balsamic resin of benzoin, the scaly strobiles
of hops, the styles and stigmas of zea.
The animal kingdom has likewise been forced to bring tribute to its
highest brother: we use in medicine the blood-sucking leech, the
natural emulsion from the mammary glands of the cow, the internal
fat from the abdomen of the hog, the coppery-green Spanish fly,
the globular excrements of the leaping antelope, the fixed oil
from the livers of the cod, the fresh bile of the stolid ox, the
vitellus of the hen’s egg, the fatty substance from the huge head
of the sperm-whale, the odorous secretion of the musk-deer, the
swimming-bladder of regal fish, the inner layer of the oyster-shell,
the branched skeleton of the red polyp, the dried follicles of the
boring beaver, the bony horns of the crimson deer, the thyreoid
glands of the simple sheep, the coagulated serum from the blood of
the horse, the wax and the honey from the hive of the busy bee, and
even the disgusting cockroaches that infest the kitchen-shelves and
climb all over the washtubs are used as a diuretic and for dropsy.
Little it matters by whom the healing agent was ushered in, for
mankind in its frantic search for health asks not the creed or color
of its medical savior: Pipsissewa was introduced into medicine by the
redskins, buchu by the hottentots, quassia by a negro slave, zinc
valerianate by a French prince, krameria by a Spanish refugee, ipecac
by the Brazilian aborigines, guaiac by a syphilitic warrior, aspidium
by a Swiss widow.
“Medicine,” wrote the greatest of literary physicians, “appropriates
everything from every source that can be of the slightest use to
anybody who is ailing in any way, or like to be ailing from any
cause. It learned from a monk how to use antimony, from a Jesuit how
to cure agues, from a friar how to cut for stone, from a soldier
how to treat gout, from a sailor how to keep off scurvy, from a
postmaster how to sound the Eustachian tube, from a dairy-maid how
to prevent small-pox, and from an old market-woman how to catch the
itch-insect. It borrowed acupuncture and the moxa from the Japanese
heathen, and was taught the use of lobelia by the American savage.”
And all these substances are daily being powdered, sifted,
granulated, desiccated, percolated, macerated, distilled, sublimed,
comminuted, dissolved, precipitated, filtered, strained, expressed,
clarified, crystallized, ignited, fused, calcined, torrified and
deflagrated into powders, pills, wafers, capsules, ampoules,
extracts, tinctures, infusions, decoctions, syrups, cordials,
essences, magmas, suppositories, tablets, troches, ointments,
plasters, abstracts, liniments, collodions, cataplasms and so on and
so on.
And all these finished preparations have a most laudable object in
view--the eradication of disease and the alleviation of pain. Ah,
this is indeed a quest worth the striving for! To accomplish the
quadrature of the circle, or ferret out the secret of perpetual
motion, may be highly interesting, tho of problematical value
only; but when a clammy sweat bathes the brow, and the delicate
nerves twitch till the tortured human frame shakes in anguish, how
important is it to be able to lift the veil from a condition like
this! He who conquers disease is greater than the builder of cities
or the creator of empires. His value is above the poets, statesmen
cannot be compared unto him, educators equal him not in worth. A
careful economist like John Stuart Mill tells us it is doubtful if
all the labor-saving machinery ever invented has lessened for a
single day the work of a single human being,--but when a discovery
is made in medicine it becomes a sun which sheds its beneficence
on all who suffer. The sick pauper of to-day lying in a charity
hospital receives better medical treatment than the sick potentate of
yesterday lying in his costly palace.
But so far medical science has only unhorsed, not overthrown, its
ancient antagonist. In spite of all the remedies, in spite of all
the research, mankind as yet possesses no satisfactory antidote for
suffering; it knows no drug which can give pain its _congé_ for more
than a transient period.
But altho the time of relief be limited, the simple fact that there
are substances which do have some power over pain is sufficient
to make the study of narcotism highly important. And of all the
narcotics--a narcotic being roughly defined as a substance which
relieves pain and produces excitability followed by sleep--none is
more alluring to the imagination than the intoxicating hemp-plant,
scientifically known as _Cannabis sativa_ and popularly famed as
Hasheesh--those strange flowering-tops that appeal to a pot-bellied
bushman of Australia who smokes it in a pipe of animal tusks, and
to so hyper-esoteric a _littérateur_ as Charles Baudelaire of the
Celestial City of Art.
The habitat of the hemp-plant is extensive: not by the hand of man
were the seeds sown that gave it birth near the Caspian Sea, where it
wildly flourishes on the banks of the immense Volga--that mighty mass
of liquid ever stupendously rolling thru a limitless continent; it
climbs the Altai range and thrives where the Himalaya rears its stony
head ten thousand feet on high; it extends to Persia, and China knows
it; the Congo river and the hot Zambesi bathe it in Africa, it is not
a stranger in sunny France, and how well it thrives in Kentucky the
numerous readers of the _Reign of Law_ will ever remember.
In the seventeenth century Rumphius noticed that there were
differences between the hemp grown in India and the hemp grown
in Europe. In the nineteenth century Lamarck accepted these
distinctions, and believing the Indian hemp to be a separate species,
agreed in calling it _Cannabis indica_ as a distinction from the
_Cannabis sativa_ of Linnæus and Willdenow. But it is now conceded
that from a botanical standpoint the variations are by no means
certain or important enough to warrant the maintenance of Indian hemp
as a species distinct from common hemp. And as the greater includes
the lesser, in botany as well as in geometry, its botanical name is
_Cannabis sativa_, with _Cannabis indica_ as one variety, just as
_Cannabis americana_ is another variety.
The hemp grown in Russia is of a fibrous quality, and is largely used
for the gallows--to hang the opponents of despotism. In England many
a bold highwayman has been embraced by it the last moment of his
roving life, and has thus philanthropically given his mother-tongue
a chance to enrich herself. For instance, a hempie means a rascal
for whom the hemp grows; a hempen collar means the hangman’s noose;
a hempen widow means one whose husband has been hanged; to sow hemp
means to live in a manner likely to lead to the gallows. Rope,
however, is not the only use to which the fibers can be put; they
are extensively employed in clothing, and in the manufacture of paper.
The plant is also cultivated for its seeds, which contain a large
quantity of oil, and is therefore used in pharmacy for emulsions,
and in the domestic arts because of its drying properties. But the
seeds are chiefly used as a favorite food for birds. In fact, some
birds consume them to excess, which should lead us to suspect that
these seeds, tho they cannot intoxicate us, have a narcotic effect
on the feathered creatures, making them dream of a happy birdland
where there are no gilded cages, and where the men are gunless and
the women hatless. The seeds also contain sugar and considerable
albumin,--making them very nutritious; rabbits eat them readily. They
are consumed also by some human beings, but are not as good as the
sunflower seeds which Marianka ceaselessly and carelessly crunched,
while Olenine looked upon her moving lips with a lover’s despair.
The medicinal hemp--the hemp with the potent narcotic principles--is
_Cannabis indica_. In this case we have an example of Compensation
that would have made Emerson’s eyes glisten, for altho the fibrous
texture of hemp disappears under a southern sun, to make up for the
loss there is secreted a resin--_Churrus_. This resin is collected
in a most singular manner. During the hot season, according to
Dr. O’Shaughnessy, men clothed in leather run violently thru the
hemp-fields and brush forcibly against the plants. The soft, sticky
resin adheres to the garments, and is later scraped off and kneaded
into balls. Dr. M’Kinnon informed Dr. O’Shaughnessy that in the
province of Nipal the leather attire is dispensed with, and that the
natives run naked thru the hemp fields, gathering the resin on their
bare bodies.
When the larger leaves turn brown and fall to the ground, it is
an indication of the approach of maturity. The flowering tops are
then cut off, and subjected to a process of rolling and treading by
trained human feet. The hemp is placed on a hard floor surrounded
by a rail; the natives take hold of a revolving post, march around
and around, singing the while, and press the plants in a technical
manner. Whether the perspiration which drips from their unshod
organs of locomotion works any chemical change in the composition of
Cannabis has not yet been determined by E. M. Holmes or E. W. Dixon.
It is not surprising to learn that the dealing in Hasheesh is a
Government monopoly, and that heavy punishment is meted out to those
offenders who buy or sell it without permission. “The importation of
it into Egypt is so strongly interdicted,” explains the _Dispensatory
of the United States_, “that the mere possession of it is a penal
offense; we found it, however, readily procurable. It is said to be
brought into the country in pigs’ bladders, in the Indo-European
steamers, and thrown out at night during the passage into the
Suez canal, to be picked up by the boats of confederates.” This
deplorable state of affairs is apt to remind us of our own temperance
towns--where there are always some individuals who possess the
faculty of obtaining whisky _ad libitum_.
_Cannabis sativa_ is a member of the _Moraceæ_ or Mulberry Family,
which family was formerly an order of apetalous dicotyledenous trees
or shrubs, but is now reduced to a tribe of the _Urticaceæ_ or Nettle
Family which embraces 110 genera and 1500 species.
Cannabis is an annual herb, and thus endures but one year, because
instead of storing away nutritious matter in underground bulbs and
tubers like the industrious biennials or perennials, it exultingly
expends its new-born energy in the production of beautiful blossoms
and the maturation of fruit and seed. “This completed,” says Asa
Gray, “the exhausted and not at all replenished individual perishes.”
Sexually, hemp is diœcious, which means that its staminate and
pistillate organs are not on the same plant. When cultivated for its
narcotic properties, only the flowering tops of the unfertilized
female plants are used, and the male plants are eradicated with
great care, as it is claimed that a single one can spoil an entire
field--something like a Boccaccion gentleman in a nunnery. The
process of weeding out the males is performed by an expert called a
poddar, who brings to his work a conscious technical skill, and an
unconscious but interesting argument in illustration of what Lester
F. Ward has described as the Androcentric World View, for the poddar
deliberately reverses the names of the sexes, and designates the
useful females as males, and calls the rejected males the females.
If we had such impudent poddars in the animal world, no doubt the
valuable Miss Jane Addams would be metamorphosed into James, while
the unnecessary Mr. Anthony Comstock would be adorned with a feminine
appellation.
Cannabis is from 4 to 12 feet in height; its stem is angular,
branching, and covered with matted hairs; its leaves are palmate
and therefore roughly resemble an open hand; its leaflets are
lance-shaped, possessing margins dentated with saw-like teeth; its
flowers are yellow and axillary, the male cluster being a raceme and
therefore pedicelled, and the female a spike and consequently sessile
or stemless; the five male organs or stamens contain pendulous
double-celled sacs or anthers; the two female organs or pistils have
glandular stigmas, the stigma being the spot where fertilization
occurs; the fruit is a gray nut or achene, each containing a single
oily seed; the whole plant is covered with a scarcely visible down;
the roughness of the leaves and stem is due to the silica, which is a
characteristic of the plants of the _Moraceæ_.
Not much need be said of the microscopical characteristics of hemp,
for altho the powder contains several histological elements, as
pollen grains, glands, crystals, resin, fibres, vessels, stone cells,
epidermis, parenchyma,--indicating presence of stem, leaf, flower,
seed,--its characteristic hairs or trichomes with their cystolith
deposits are of sufficient diagnostic value to make it readily
recognizable.
Unfortunately, when we come to the chemical constituents of
Cannabis, certainty is at an end. As Dorvault’s _L’Officine_ says,
“La composition chimique du cannabis indica est mal connue.” The
conquests of man are peculiar: he lays a cable under the roaring
ocean, and he flashes his messages thru limitless miles of space;
beneath the surface of the earth he rides on an iron horse, and
bird-like he sails thru the trackless air. But put this common drug
before him and he cannot determine its chemical composition. The
careful experimenters and the expert assayers are balked.
“I have extracted an alkaloid from hasheesh,” says Preobraschensky,
“and it is potent.” “No, we have found the active constituent,” say
T. and H. Smith; “it is the resin cannabin.” “No,” says Personne,
“I have isolated the important ingredient; it is the amber-colored
volatile oil, cannabene.” “Oh, no,” says Frankel, “I have discovered
the active principle--it is a phenol aldehyde.” “No, indeed,” say
Wood, Spivey and Easterfield, “it is we who have separated the only
active ingredient--it is a red oil, cannabinol.” “Oh, not at all,”
says Hamilton, “not one of these is the active constituent; in fact,
the active constituent has not yet been isolated.” In such an arena,
where the masters dispute, it behooves the amateur to speak with a
stammering tongue.
That doubt should prevail on this subject is all the more remarkable
when we consider that hemp has been known from a time whereof the
mind of man runneth not to the contrary--to use a phrase which seems
to delight the lawyers. In the _Odyssey_, a thousand years before
the advent of the Christian era, Homer sang of the assuager of
grief or Nepenthes, which is believed to have been the hemp-plant.
Hemp thus comes ushered into history, held in the beautiful hand
of Helen. Hesychius narrates that the Thracian women made sheets
of hemp. Pliny says hemp was known to the Romans, who manufactured
cordage from it. The Father of History relates that the Scythians
threw the seeds of hemp on red-hot stones, and bathed themselves in
the vapor, crying with exultation. Moschion records that the ship
_Syracusia_, built for Hiero--kinsman of Archimedes--was rigged
with hempen ropes. In the most ancient of all Hindu medical works,
_Susruta_, hemp is recommended for catarrh. The Pandit Moodoosudun
Gooptu found in the _Rajniguntu_ a clear account of hemp. A Sanskrit
work on Materia Medica, _Rajbulubha_, alludes to the use of hemp
in gonorrhea. According to Kamalakantha Vidyalanka, hemp was early
forbidden to pious Brahmins. The old Arabic and Persian writers
made numerous references to cannabis, and declared its narcotic
properties were discovered by Haider. Haider was a rigid monk who
built a monastery on the mountains between Nishabor and Ramah. For
ten years he never left his hermitage, never indulged in even a
fleeting moment’s pleasure. One burning summer’s day when the fiery
sun glared angrily upon Mother Earth as if he wished to wither up
her breasts, Haider stepped out from his cloister and walked alone
to the fields. All around him lay the vegetation weary and without
life, but one plant danced in the heat with joy. Haider plucked
it, partook of it, and returned to the convent a happier man. The
monks who saw him immediately noticed the change in their chief. He
encouraged conversation, and acted boisterously. He then led his
companions to the fields, and the holy men partook of the hasheesh,
and were transformed from austere ascetics into jolly good fellows.
At the death of Haider, in conformity with his desire, his disciples
planted the hemp in an arbor around his tomb.---- In that portion
of the Chinese herbal, _Rh-ya_, which was written 500 B.C., the
seed and flower-bearing kinds of hemp are noticed. In the first
century, Dioscorides--the most renowned of the ancient writers on
Materia Medica--recommended the seeds in the form of a cataplasm to
soothe inflammation. In the second century, Galen wrote that it was
customary to give hemp to guests at banquets to promote hilarity
and happiness. At the beginning of the third century, the physician
Hoa-Thoa used hemp as an anesthetic in surgical operations. In the
thirteenth century, garments of hemp became common thruout Southern
Europe, and it may well be that Beatrice herself wore it when Dante
first saw the maiden in her father’s house.
There is a remarkable episode in the history of Hasheesh, indicating
how the character of a people may be affected by the surrounding
vegetation. Mohammedanism, like all other theologies, has been rent
by schisms, and the question as to who was the legitimate successor
of the Prophet split this Oriental faith into two great sects--the
Sunnis and the Shiahs. The latter were the heretics, as they
considered Mohammed’s son-in-law the true imam. The Shiahs themselves
were further subdivided into several parties, the Ismaelites being
the most important. The Ismaelites were especially powerful in
Persia, and later--thru the instrumentality of an escaped prisoner
who seized the throne--gained a firm foothold in Egypt. A grand lodge
was formed in the city of Cairo--on the banks of the river whose
ancient waters heard the hammering at the quarries for the rearing
of the Great Pyramid. Many rules were now made by the Ismaelites,
and the petty race of perishable men was much flustered, while the
immortal Nile flowed indifferently from its equatorial cradle,
refreshing the crimson water-lilies, bathing the reeds that lined
its shore, and wetting the sands where the thoughtful Sphinx opens
not its lips.
In the course of time this lodge was visited by the clever Ismaelite,
Hassan Ben Sabbah--a boyhood friend of Omar Khayyám--who was received
with acclamation. Hassan soon received enough honors to excite
jealousy, and while plotting for more power was defeated and forced
to disappear from Egypt, but, after traveling awhile, he settled near
Kuhistan. He gathered around him a considerable number of followers,
and by strategy, in 1090, captured the powerful Persian fortress of
Alamut. Hassan now introduced a new feature into his society--the
employment of secret murder against all enemies. It was the Sheikh of
this organization who loomed large in medieval folk-lore as the Old
Man of the Mountains. Many young men became disciples, and willingly
performed the bloody work. These youths were known as the _Fedais_
or Devoted Ones. When a Devoted One was selected to commit murder,
he was first stupefied with hasheesh, and while in this state was
brought into the magnificent gardens of the sheikh. All the sensual
and stimulating pleasures of the erotic orient surrounded the
excited youth, and exalted by the delicious hypnotic he had taken,
the hot-blooded fanatic felt that the gates of heaven were already
ajar, and heard them swing open on their golden hinges. When the
effect of the drug disappeared and the Devoted One was reduced to his
normal condition, he was informed that thru the generosity of his
superior he had been permitted to foretaste the delights of Paradise.
The Devoted One believed this readily enough--disciples are always
credulous--and therefore was eager to die or to kill at a word from
his master. From these hasheesh-eaters, the Arabian name of which
is _hashshashin_, was derived the term “assassin.” It is not known
at what date the epithet was first applied to other secret slayers.
The Assassins soon became a terrible scourge, and the very sands of
the desert almost learnt to tremble before them. Many an unprepared
breast felt their daggers, and many a surprised stomach tried in
vain to vomit up their poisons. Prince and calif they struck down,
and more than one haughty chief paid tribute to the Old Man of the
Mountains. During the invasion of Palestine by the Crusaders, the
Syrian branch of the Assassins reached its bloody zenith, and who
shall say how many high-born damsels wept for knightly shields that
lay low in the dust of Lebanon? The power of the Assassins was
destroyed in Persia about the middle of the thirteenth century, and
some years later the Mameluke sultan of Egypt exterminated them in
Syria. But just as there are still some Innsbruck Jesuits who pray
for the revival of the Spanish Inquisition, so some remnants of
the Assassins yet linger between the Tigris river and the mount of
Taurus--but what of that? The Old Man of the Mountains now sleeps in
Death’s Valley, and not all the hasheesh from Bengal could exalt him.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleon invaded
Egypt--and grew philosophic as he met the gaze of the prehistoric
pyramids--hasheesh was brought prominently to the notice of
Europeans by the accounts of DeSacy and Rouger. By this time its
narcotic properties must have been known to the Occidentals, for as
far back as 1690 Berlu in his _Treasury of Drugs_ described it as
“of an infatuating quality and pernicious use.” Nevertheless, its
introduction into the Pharmacopeias of Europe and the United States
is due mainly to the elaborate experimentation carried on during
1839 and several succeeding years by the talented Dr. William B.
O’Shaughnessy, Professor of Chemistry in the Medical College of
Calcutta.
This brings us to the physiological action of Cannabis. It primarily
stimulates the brain, has a mydriatic effect upon the pupil, slightly
accelerates the pulse, sometimes quickens and sometimes retards
breathing, produces a ravenous appetite, increases the amount of
urine, and augments the contractions of the uterus. In other words,
it has an effect on the nervous, respiratory, circulatory, digestive,
excretory and genito-urinary systems.
As a therapeutic agent hasheesh has its eulogizers, tho like many
other drugs it has been replaced by later remedies in various
disorders for which it was formerly used. Old drugs, like old folks,
must give way to the new, and even the therapeutic master-builders
must beware when the young generation of healing-agents knocks on the
door of health.
In medicinal doses Cannabis is used as an aphrodisiac, for neuralgia,
to quiet maniacs, for the cure of chronic alcoholism and morphine and
chloral habits, for mental depression, hysteria, softening of the
brain, nervous vomiting, for distressing cough, for St. Vitus’ dance,
and for the falling sickness so successfully simulated by Kipling’s
Sleary--epileptic fits of a most appalling kind. It is used in spasm
of the bladder, in migraine, and when the dreaded _Bacillus tetanus_
makes the muscles rigid. It is a uterine tonic, and a remedy in the
headaches and hemorrhages occurring at the final cessation of the
menses. It has been pressed into the service of the diseases that
mankind has named in honor of Venus. According to Osler, cannabis
is sometimes useful in locomotor ataxia. Christison reports a case
in which Cannabis entirely cured the intense itching of eczema,
while the patient was enjoying the delightful slumber which the
hemp induced. It is much employed as an hypnotic in those cases
where opium because of long-continued use has lost its efficiency.
As a specific in hydrophobia it is sometimes marvelous, for Dr. J.
W. Palmer writes that he himself has seen a sepoy, an hour before
furiously hydrophobic, under the influence of cannabis drinking water
freely and pleasantly washing his face and hands! Its function in
this unspeakable affliction should be investigated carefully, for it
will be a gala day for mankind when it can cease to fear Montaigne’s
terrible line: “The saliva of a wretched dog touching the hand of
Socrates, might disturb and destroy his intellect.”
The official definition of _Cannabis indica_ as given by the Eighth
Decennial Revision of our _Pharmacopeia_ is as follows: “The dried
flowering tops of the pistillate plants of _Cannabis sativa_ Linné
(Fam. _Moraceæ_), grown in the East Indies and gathered while the
fruits are yet undeveloped, and carrying the whole of their natural
resin.” Three preparations of the drug are official: an Extract, a
Fluid-extract, and a Tincture.
In the last (third) edition of the _National Formulary_, hemp enters
into four galenicals: in chloral and bromine compound which is used
as a sedative and hypnotic, in chloroform Anodyne which is used in
diarrhoea and cholera, in Brown Sequard’s anti-neuralgic pills, and
in corn collodion. Hemp is a constituent in the majority of corn
remedies. Not many drugs are used for both the brain and the feet,
but with cannabis we have this anomaly: a man may see visions by
swallowing his corn-cure.
Out of the enormous number of prescriptions in which hasheesh
enters as an ingredient, only half a dozen can be here represented.
In Hager’s _Pharmaceutische Praxis_ occurs this prescription for
gonorrhea:
=℞=
Kali nitrici
Natri nitrici ana 5,0
Extracti Hyoscyami 0,5
Aquæ Amygdalarum amararum 10,0
Emulsionis Cannabis fructus 200,0
For dysmenorrhea the _Journal de Médecine de Paris_ recommends the
following suppositories, with the directions that one be introduced
every evening, commencing with the fifth day before the menses:
=℞=
Ex. cannab. indicæ gr. ¼
Ex. belladonnæ gr. ¼
Ol. theobrom. q. s.--M.
For phthisis, when accompanied by insomnia and nervous dyspepsia, Dr.
S. G. Bonney prescribes:
=℞=
Strychnin, sulph. gr. ⅔
Extracti opii gr. j
Extracti cannabis indicæ gr. j ss
Salolis gr. c.
Aloini gr. ss.--M.
Pone in capsulas No. xx
Dr. Rankin fights dyspepsia with the following formula, one capsule
being given after meals:
=℞=
Zinci valeratis ʒj
Acidi carbolici gr. xl
Acidi arsenosi gr. ss
Extracti cannabis indicæ. gr. v.--M.
Pone in capsulas No. xx.
When a patient of Van Harlingen is attacked with _ichthyosis
hystrix_, the disagreeable skin-disease finds itself daily painted
with this preparation:
=℞=
Acid. salicylici ʒss
Ex. cannabis ind gr. x
Collodii f℥j--M.
Dr. Da Costa endeavors to relieve impotence by giving his patients,
morning and evening, this pill:
=℞=
Ex. cannabis indicæ
Ex. nucis vomicæ aa gr. xv
Ex. ergotae aquosi ʒj.--M.
Et. ft. pil. No. xxx
The results of the prolonged use of large doses of Cannabis are thus
epitomized by Alfred Stillé: “The habitual use of this drug entails
consequences no less mischievous than are produced by alcohol
and opium; the face becomes bloated, the eyes injected, the limbs
weak and tremulous, the mind sinks into a state of imbecility, and
death by marasmus is the ultimate penalty paid for the overstrained
pleasure it imparts.”
Poisoning by hasheesh is treated by the administration of emetics
(what poison isn’t), lemon-juice, tannin, coffee, ammonia,
strychnine, atropine, spirit of nitrous ether. Electricity and
artificial respiration are often useful.
A strange thing about hasheesh is that an overdose has never produced
death in man or the lower animals. Not one authentic case is on
record in which Cannabis or any of its preparations destroyed life.
We thus have a poison which lacks a maximum and a fatal dose. Indeed,
if we desire to be finical, we can claim that according to what
is now considered the best definition of a poison, Cannabis is no
poison at all, for the aforesaid best definition defines a poison
as “any substance which is capable of causing death, otherwise than
mechanically, when introduced into the body or applied to it”--and
Cannabis does not seem capable of causing death by chemical or
physiological action.
“Hemp,” says Professor Horatio C. Wood, “is not a dangerous drug;
even the largest doses of its active preparations, altho causing most
alarming symptoms, do not compromise life.”
“We have never been able,” testify Drs. Houghton and Hamilton, “to
give an animal a sufficient quantity of the drug to produce death.
When study of the drug was first commenced, careful search on the
literature of the subject was made to determine its toxicity. Not a
single case of fatal poisoning have we been able to find reported,
altho often alarming symptoms may occur. A dog weighing about 25
pounds received an injection of 2 ounces of the U. S. P. fluidextract
in the jugular vein, with the expectation that it would certainly
be sufficient to kill the animal. To our surprise the animal after
being unconscious for about a day and a half, recovered completely.
Another dog received about 7 grams of the solid extract with the
same result.”
That herbivorous animals are even less affected by it I know from
my own simple experiments. I gave a rabbit a drachm and a half of
the fluidextract of cannabis. No sooner did I release the animal
than it began to nibble a commonplace vegetable, indifferent to
the circumstance that it had been baptised with the most precious
opiate of the orient. For four hours I watched this member of the
genus _Lepus_, but no physical effects could be observed, while the
mild expression of its gentle eyes induced me to conclude that all
mental manifestations were lacking to such a degree that the bunny
still worshiped the rather material trinity of crackers, carrots and
cabbages. This rabbit was sold to an experienced dealer, and sometime
later while passing the store, I learnt it had become the sire of a
goodly progeny, but what I really would like to learn is this: will
those little innocent rabbits--with their asinine ears and angelic
eyes--ever know of their father’s enforced hasheesh debauch?
Few creatures have so slight a hold on life as the pretty
guinea-pig--which does not come from Guinea and is not a pig. A
blow of the hand, a bit of moisture, a breath of cold, and their
squealing is done. But they do not mind cannabis. I chose a fine
fellow, anesthetized his glossy back with ethyl chloride, and then
by means of a hypodermic syringe injected 100 minims of the powerful
fluidextract into his circulation. There were no results. After the
elapse of some hours the generous cavy so far forgot the incident as
to pull some sweet-pea pods from my hand.
Dr. O’Shaughnessy says that all his experiments “tended to
demonstrate that, while carnivorous animals and fish, dogs, cats,
swine, vultures, crows, and adjutants invariably and speedily
exhibited the intoxicating influence of the drug, the graminivorous,
such as the horse, deer, monkey, goat, sheep, and cow, experienced
but trivial effects from any dose we administered.” Lieutaud and
Mabillat say the same.
Up to this period we have considered hasheesh from the historic,
botanic, microscopic, chemic, physiologic, therapeutic and
pharmacologic viewpoints: what then remains? Why, friends, the best
is yet to be, the last for which the first was made--as Browning
would say.
Why has everyone heard of opium? Because of its somnifacient and
myotic properties? No, but because sixty million pounds are consumed
by people for the purpose of pleasure. It is the same with hasheesh.
All heathens use it to increase their joys: Moors, Mohammedans,
Malays, Burmese, Siamese, Hindoos, Hottentots, Australian Bushmen
and Brazilian Indians--three hundred millions of them. The grateful
Orientals have endowed their hasheesh with such epithets as exciter
of desire, increaser of pleasure, cementer of friendship, leaf of
delusion, the laughter-mover, causer of the reeling gait. “It is real
happiness,” says Monsieur Moreau, and Herbert Spencer quotes the
sentence in his _Principles of Psychology_,--“It is real happiness
which hasheesh causes.”
It is unreasonable to suppose that a powerful narcotic like cannabis
will produce uniform results in all instances, when it is notorious
that even coffee affects different people in different ways; one
lady drinks tea to keep her awake at night, and her neighbor
drinks it to put her asleep; an Havana cigar irritates Brown and
tranquillizes Jones; a glass of grog causes one man to beat his
children, and induces another to give away his coat to strangers.
The constitutional peculiarity of the subject must always be taken
into consideration: some folks are so absurd as to become afflicted
with nettle-rash after partaking of delicious strawberries; others
are poisoned by an egg; some become ill in the presence of the
violet, and others faint when they smell the lily; Tissot mentions a
person who vomited if he took a grain of sugar; Louis XIV had grand
manners, but he preferred the odor of cat’s urine to that of the red
rose. “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean.”
Idiosyncrasy may not be the star performer, but it certainly plays an
important rôle in the therapeutic drama.
No drug in the entire Materia Medica is capable of producing
such a diversity of effects as cannabis indica. “Of the action of
hasheesh,” writes Professor Stillé, “many and various descriptions
have been given which differ so widely among themselves that they
would scarcely be supposed to apply to the same agent, had we not
every day a no less remarkable instance of the same kind before us
in the case of alcohol. As the latter enlivens or saddens, excites
or depresses, fills with tenderness, or urges to brutality, imparts
vigor and activity, or nauseates and weakens, so does the former give
rise to even a still greater variety of phenomena, according to the
natural disposition of the person, and his existing state of mind,
the quantity of the drug, and the combinations in which it is taken.”
And not only is there a contrariety and dissimilarity of action,
but sometimes there is no action at all. Cannabis is certainly
the coquette of drugdom. Take agaric, and it will stop your
perspiration--take jaborandi, and it will sweat you half to death;
take creosote, and it will prevent emesis--take ipecac, and it
will vomit you till your very guts cry out for mercy; take eserine,
and your pupils will contract--take atropine, and they will dilate;
veratrine will make you sneeze, the dust of sanguinaria will give you
a bloody nose, aloes will act on your lower bowel, podophyllum will
work on the upper, squill will make you pass water by the quart, an
injection of strychnine will stimulate you, a dose of morphine will
put you in the arms of Morpheus,--but take cannabis, and who can
predict the result? It may do wondrous things to you, and it may let
you strictly alone.
To a worker on the Associated Press named I. M. Norr, I gave 30
minims of the fluidextract. There were no results. To a law student
named Aaron Wolman, I gave 40 minims. There was no more effect than
if he had taken 40 drops of water. It must be added, however, that
these experimenters, instead of putting themselves in a receptive
state, had determined beforehand to fight the influence of the drug.
On the evening of May 18th, 1910, I gave 25 minims to Dr. Anna
Mercy, and altho she threw herself at the shrine of science in a way
that must have astonished the sober old altar of experiment, there
were no results worth mentioning, except that while in the evening
she looked respectable, in the morning she looked disreputable.
Had all my experiments turned out thus, this essay would never have
been written. But I have had results fully as interesting as those
achieved by O’Shaughnessy, Moreau, Mabillat, Reidel, Schroff, Wood,
Bell, Christison, Aubert, and many others, including our gifted
traveler-poet Bayard Taylor.
My brother Frederic Robinson took 25 minims in the presence of
some ladies whom he had invited to witness the fun. An hour passed
without results. A second hour followed, but--to use the slang of
the street--there was nothing doing. The third hour promised to
be equally fruitless, and as it was already late in the evening,
the ladies said good-by. No sooner did they leave the room, than I
heard the hasheesh-laugh. The hemp was doing its work. In a shrill
voice my brother was exclaiming, “What foo-oolish people, what
foo-oo-ool-ish people to leave just when the show is beginning.”
The ladies came back. And it was a show. Frederic made Socialistic
speeches, and argued warmly for the cause of Woman Suffrage. He grew
most affectionate and insisted on holding a lady’s hand. His face was
flushed, his eyes were half closed, his abdomen seemed uneasy, but
his spirit was happy. He sang, he rhymed, he declaimed, he whistled,
he mimicked, he acted. He pleaded so passionately for the rights of
Humanity that it seemed he was using up the resources of his system.
But he was tireless. With both hands he gesticulated, and would brook
no interruption.
Peculiar ideas suggested themselves. For instance, he said something
was “sheer nonsense,” and then reasoned as follows: “Since shears are
the same as scissors, instead of sheer nonsense I can say scissors
nonsense.” He also said, “I will give you a kick in the tickle”--and
was much amused by the expression.
At all times he recognized those about him, and remained conscious
of his surroundings. When the approach of dawn forced the ladies
to depart, Frederic made a somewhat unsavory joke, and immediately
exclaimed triumphantly, “I wouldn’t have said that if the ladies
were here for a million dollars.” Someone yawned deeply, and being
displeased by the unexpected appearance of a gaping orifice, Frederic
melodramatically gave utterance to this Gorky-like phrase: “From
the depths of dirtiness and despair there rose a sickly odorous
yawn”--and instantly he remarked that the first portion of this
sentence was alliterative! Is it not strange that such consciousness
and such intoxication can exist in the same brain simultaneously?
The next day he remembered all that occurred, was in excellent
spirits, laughed much and easily, and felt himself above the petty
things of this world.
On May 19th, 1910, this world was excited over the visit of Halley’s
comet. It is pleasant to remember that the celestial guest attracted
as much attention as a political campaign or a game of baseball.
On the evening of this day, at 10 o’clock, I gave 45 minims to a
court stenographer named Henry D. Demuth. At 11.30 the effects of
the drug became apparent, and Mr. Demuth lost consciousness of his
surroundings to such an extent that he imagined himself an inhabitant
of Sir Edmund Halley’s nebulous planet. He despised the earth and
the dwellers thereon; he called it a miserable little flea-bite,
and claimed its place in the cosmos was no more important than a
flea-jump. With a scornful finger he pointed below, and said in a
voice of contempt, “That little joke down there, called the earth.”
“Victor,” he said, “you’re a fine fellow, you’re the smartest man in
Harlem, you’ve got the god in you, but the best thoughts you write
are low compared to the things we think up here.” A little later he
condescended to take me up with him, and said, “Victor, we’re up in
the realm now, and we’ll make money when we get down on that damned
measly earth again; they respect Demuth on earth.”
He imitated how Magistrate Butts calls a prisoner to
the bar. “Butts,” he explained, “is the best of them.
Butts--Buts--cigarette-butts.” If this irrelevant line should ever
fall beneath the dignified eyes of His Honor, instead of fining
his devoted stenographer for contempt of court, may he bear in his
learned mind the fact that under the influence of narcotics men are
mentally irresponsible.
By this time Mr. Demuth’s vanity was enormous. “God, Mark Twain and I
are chums,” he remarked casually. “God is wise, and I am wise. And to
think that people _dictate_ to me!”
He imagined he had material for a great book. “I’m giving you the
thoughts; slap them down, we’ll make a fortune and go whacks.
We’ll make a million. I’ll get half and Vic will get half. With
half a million we’ll take it easy for a while on this damned
measly earth. We’ll live till a hundred and two, and then we’ll
skedaddle didoo. At one hundred and two it will be said of Henry
Disque Demuth that he shuffled off this mortal coil. We’ll skip
into the great idea--hooray! hooray! Take down everything that is
signifi_cant_--with an accent on the _cant_--Immanuel Kant was a wise
man, and I’m a wise man; I am wise, because I’m wise.”
It is to be regretted that in spite of all the gabble concerning
the volume that was to make both of us rich, not even one line was
dictated by the inspired author. In fact he got no further than the
title, and it must be admitted that of all titles in the world, this
is the least catchy. It is as follows: “Wise is God; God is Wise.”
Later came a variation in the form of a hissing sound which was
meant to be an imitation of the whizzing of Halley’s comet; there
was a wild swinging of the sheets as a welcome to the President;
a definition of religion as the greatest joke ever perpetrated;
some hasheesh-laughter; and the utterance of this original epigram:
Shakespeare, seltzer-beer, be cheerful.
A little later all variations ceased, for the subject became a
monomaniac, or at any rate, a fanatic. He became thoroly imbued with
the great idea that the right attitude to preserve towards life is
to take all things on earth as a joke. Hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of times he repeated: “The idea of the great idea, the idea
of the great idea, the idea of the great idea.” No question could
steer him out of this track. “Who’s up on the comet? Any pretty girls
there?” asked Frederic. “The great idea is up there,” was the answer.
“Where would you fall if you fell off the comet?”
“I’d fall into the great idea.”
“What do you do when you want to eat and have no money?”
“You have to get the idea.”
“When will you get married?”
“When I get the idea.”
Midnight came, and he was still talking about his great idea. At one
o’clock I felt bored. “If you don’t talk about anything else except
the idea, we’ll have to quit,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “we’ll all quit, we’ll all be wrapped up in
the great idea.” He took out his handkerchief to blow his nose,
remarking, “The idea of my nose.” I approached him. “Don’t
interfere,” he cried, “I’m off with the great idea.”