176
pleasant intoxication and some stimulation is pro-
duced. Charas is said to make the head feel heavy.
Charas deadens appetite, so does ganja to some
extent; but bhang gives appetite. No particular
after-effects of ganja smoking or bhang-drinking.
Charas smoking is followed by laziness and general
uneasiness, languor, and a craving for the smoke.
Effects of ganja last about an hour; of charas a
little longer. (Information collected from repu-
table ganja and charas smokers of several years'
standing).
45. Charas undoubtedly has noxious effects,
physical, mental and moral. It impairs digestion
and injures the constitution in many ways; so
does ganja, though to a much less extent. In
some cases ganja-smoking moderately appears to
be harmful enough. Charas and ganja both im-
pair digestion. Dysentery and bronchitis are not
the uncommon effects of even moderate use of
ganja and charas. Bhang in the form of thandai
is harmless in every way.
Habitual moderate use of ganja and charas
apparently does not deaden the intellect or produce
insanity. Ganja and charas smoking are powerful
exciting causes of insanity. The insanity produced
by ganja and charas smoking is usually of a tem-
porary and violent character. The symptoms may
be reinduced by the use of the drug after liberation
from restraint. I believe the circumstances alluded
to in connection with the cases of insanity pro-
duced by ganja-smoking that have come to my
knowledge have been sufficiently considered. But
granting that certain insane people primarily suf-
fered from mental anxiety or some form of incipient
or decided brain disease, and took to ganja smok-
ing with a view to obtain relief from their suffer-
ings, the very important share of ganja-smoking
in hastening the ultimate result could not be
ignored. Had such people not resorted to this
unnatural source of relief and taken to some other
form of narcotic or stimulant, as opium or alcohol,
very probably they would not have so surely
developed insanity in themselves. Opium is un-
questionably beneficial in certain forms of brain
disease. The part of the question which follows
immediately appears to be rather obscurely worded
(and do you think there is any evidence, etc.) The
meaning is clear enough as far as the word
"drugs;" but why the clause following, viz., by
a person who is deficient, etc., has been added is
rather difficult to comprehend. Is it meant that
certain cases of insanity, as well as of deficient
self-control through weakened intellect (which
latter should, in my opinion, be considered as cases
of incipient insanity) tend to indulgence in the
use of hemp drugs? Then the question reduces
itself to this: Does insanity or incipient insanity
tend to indulgence in the use of hemp drugs? I
do not know of any form of insanity developed or
in the incipient stage that has this special ten-
dency. Now to give only a few, among others,
of well-observed cases of insanity traceable to
ganja smoking, I need cite the following:-
(1) A lamentable case of a young man in a
respectable family, very closely related to
a medical man of several years' standing,
came to my personal notice in the city of
Allahabad not many years ago. There
was no family history of insanity; no
cause of special mental auxiety, nor any
symptoms of brain disease, and the insanity
was clearly traceable to smoking of ganja,
excessive or moderate could not be ascer-
tained. This young man was usually very
quiet and inoffensive, but at times used to
be more or less violent, and the insane
condition was more or less permanent. At
any rate, it could not be removed by proper
restraint.
(2) Another well-observed case of a young man,
also in a respectable family in Allahabad,
is a living example of temporary insanity
clearly brought on by ganja-smoking. In
this case fortunately, however, sufficient
restraint has been often successful in
removing the insane condition.
This
young man is still living and in good
health.
To cite another lamentable case of a young man,
a distant relative of mine, who died insane a victim
to ganja-smoking. The insanity was of a tem-
porary and violent character. Sufficient restraint
could not be enforced, and the young man died
insane.
All these are evidently juvenile cases.
Cases of chronic bronchitis and bronchial
asthma and dysentery are too numerous to be cited.
It is a popular notion, and I believe well founded
in Bengal, that the habitual ganja-smokers suffer
from bronchitis, and die ultimately from bloody
stools. All the cases of habitual ganja-smokers
that, have come under my personal notice have
more or less harsh, thick voice and chronic cough,
and it is no wonder that it- should be the case.
The real wonder is that people sometimes do es-
cape these apparently inevitable consequences, es-
pecially affections of the larynx and bronchial
tubes, of habitually filling up the lungs and bron-
chial tubes daily with such enormous quantities of
the narcotic and irritating smoke of ganja.
46 "Work and rest, so that work may be re-
sumed," is the law of life. Lowest forms of
animal life, whose vital activities are strictly limit-
ed to spontaneous movements, find the needed
rest in a quiescent stage brought on by overfeed-
ing—e g., in the amœbiform animals, when all
visible movements cease, and the creature lies
motionless. Higher in the scale of life, with
better dissemination of external impressions,
sensory-motor and automatic activities take the
place of the more or less random spontaneous
movements of the amœba, and the creatures find
their necessary and needful rest in a temporary
cessation of all muscular movements at stated
intervals. Rising still higher, we find voluntary
and physical activities superadded to the reflex
and automatic, and sleep or a temporary lull in
the conscious existence, with a cessation of all visible
movements, becomes a factor of increasing and of
more frequent importance to the animal economy.
Thus all higher forms of life with well-developed
muscles, nerves and brain need a general rest in
sleep more frequently. More than this, a sleep of
the muscles and a sleep of the nerves, so to speak,
becomes necessary alternately in addition to the
general rest of sleep. This is specially the case
with human beings. Man requires rest and re-
creation—namely, diversion brought about by
varying the activities of the one system or the
other, the muscular or the nerves, in addition to
the daily sleep he wants in common with the other
animals. Thus an ordinary labourer, whose daily
vocations call forth mainly sensory-motor and re-
flex activities into play, will find ample recreation
in exercise of the higher cerebral functional
centres. In absence of the proper means at his
command to excite the activities of the cerebral
centres in the normal way, he has to take to the
abnormal stimulus of narcotics and stimulants.
While an intellectual worker, whose daily duties