68
mainly on my knowledge of the police, of whom
many are up-country men. I have never recog-
nized any connection between bhang and rheu-
matism, and see no reason why there should be
any. There is very little true bhang used in this
province. It is more the ganja leaf.
Question 45.—I have had twenty years' experi-
ence in India. I was two or three months in
Cumberland Asylum before coming to India as
Officiating Assistant Superintendent. I did not
specially study the subject of insanity. I have
been a year and-a-half in charge of the Nagpur
Asylum. Before that I was three months in
charge of the Jabalpur Asylum. I know of no
literature dealing with special forms of insanity
seen in India. My experience leads me to think
that climate does not modify the symptoms of
particular types of insanity. Toxic insanity is
used to denote that the insanity has been produced
by some such drug as alcohol, ganja or opium.
Any insanity produced by any drug would be
called toxic insanity. This may include dhatura.
The question, of course, first to be decided, is
whether any drug produces insanity. I am not
prepared to say that hemp drugs produce insanity,
i.e., that they are ever the predisposing cause of
insanity. Dr. Hack Tuke's remarks on toxic
insanity shown to me, indicate that the name is
applicable to dementia, mania and many other
types of insanity. It is a name given to insanity
owing to its supposed cause, not owing to its
symptoms. Alcoholism might attack so many
parts of the body that one might have different
symptoms in a series of cases. But in case of
alcoholic brain mischief one would expect to find
the same symptoms running all the way through
the series. So also one would expect to find one
or more symptoms in the case of toxic insanity
from hemp drugs. In such cases I find that a
man has a sudden fit of insanity, he comes to his
senses a short time afterwards, and the previous
period of his insanity is a perfect blank to
him. The case of Maha Singh in the Nagpur
Asylum is a case in point. He says he smoked
ganja. He has no recollection of the death
of his child, which he had himself caused.
In regard to ganja cases, I am unable to point
to any symptom which I regard as diagnostic,
except the suddenness of the attack, i.e ., the
sudden paroxysm. There are no objective symp-
toms. When a case comes to the asylum, it some-
times happens that the man is sane. He is sent
( e.g ., Baliram) as ganja insane who has (as in
that case) committed murder. The history of the
case determines the diagnosis in such a case as
that. If the alleged ganja lunatic comes into the
asylum insane, I keep him under observation and
then proceed to diagnosis. That would be based
on the sudden paroxysm in which the man has no
delusions and the suddenness of the recovery.
Such paroxysms may recur without a fresh dose
of ganja. It can only be regarded as a supposi-
tion that ganja has produced the insanity. I am
not prepared to say that I am satisfied that hemp
drugs ever produce insanity, i.e., that they are
ever more than the exciting cause. The entry of
ganja as a cause is generally due to this, that it is
the custom to copy on the top of the history
sheet the entry of "supposed cause" made by the
magistrate or the police; and this entry is copied
into the returns. We are not in a position to
judge of this, to disprove it, or to correct it.
We do not consider it right or necessary then to
dispute it. In criminal cases, the cause is taken
generally from the judgment of the court. I
have never ascribed the insanity to ganja from
diagnosis of my own motion. We have to accept
these police or magisterial histories; for we have
nothing else. Within the last five or six months
it has been ordered that we are to receive copies
of judgments and any thing in the police reports
throwing light on the cause of insanity. Before
that no steps were taken to elucidate the history
of any case.
I have prescribed Cannabis indica. I give this
as a nerve tonic. I have no other experience of
the physiological action of the drug. I mean
I have no experience of that action apart from the
use of the drug as a remedial agent. I do not
know what the physiological action of hemp
preparation is.
I do not think that redness of the eyes is of
the slightest value as a diagnostic mark of ganja.
I have seen cases of insanity in which the periodi-
cal fit is preceded by redness of eyes. One case
is that of Peru, whose insanity is not alleged to be
due to ganja. This redness of eye may be regarded
as associated with brain mischief.
I do not know any case of ganja being used to
alleviate the symptoms of approaching brain mis-
chief.
I have never come on a case of insanity from
belladonna, nor from dhatura. I do not remem-
ber having read of any such cases.
I do not think that the symptoms of dhatura
poisoning are the same as those of ganja. The
former would act more upon the larynx, etc.; the
latter on the brain more immediately.
Hemp drugs could not in my opinion excite
insanity in a healthy brain. Therefore, when I
speak of hemp drugs as an exciting cause of
insanity, I imply some predisposition towards
insanity.
Sometimes patients ask for ganja. I have
noted that there are three patients who have un-
doubtedly the ganja habit. These include those
who ask for it. To give such a man tobacco
satisfies him. He knows, of course, that he will
not get ganja; but there is no great craving for
ganja.
I think that if ganja were able to cause insani-
ty in healthy subjects, we should have far more
of it. We have 10,000,000 (ten millions) of
people in the Central Provinces; and here and in
Jabalpur we have not more than three dozen
people whose insanity is ascribed to ganja. The
history in these cases even is doubtful.
37. Evidence of SURGEON-MAJOR W. A. QUAYLE, Civil Surgeon, Nimar.
1. I have resided four years in a district where
Indian hemp is extensively cultivated, and where
it is easily procurable in the adjoining Native
States.
2. The terms siddhi, sabji and putti are but
little known to the people of this district.
Settlers from Northern India are, however,
acquainted with them. The definitions bhang,
charas and ganja are those chiefly used. The ganja
manufactured here is the flat variety, prepared by
being trodden under foot for four days in the sun.
19. Charas is scarcely at all used in this district.