44
North-Western Provinces are given to using al-
cohol to excess. They never use country spirits.
37. Rather milder ; it is also more expensive,
and resorted to by native gentlemen. Both are
inhaled by the hooka through water. Charas does
not cause a tendency to cough in the smoker. The
acridity of ganja in this respect is due to the crude
tobacco leaf with which it is mixed in the opinion
of many smokers.
38. The pathar ganja has a bitter taste, and is
not so strong as the baluchur. Baluchur will
consequently go four times as far. The effects are
the same. In fact baluchur is rarely to be
obtained pure. Pathar ganja has an inferior aroma
to baluchur. In fact there is as much difference
between them in quality and price, as between a
coarse and cheap Burma cheroot, which sells at
R1-8 a hundred and a box of Havanahs, which
would cost R75 a hundred.
39. Drinking and eating bhang are, in moder-
ation, positively beneficial ; so is the use of wine
The same cannot be said for smoking either tobacco
or hemp. The hemp smoker invariably smokes a
mixture of hemp and tobacco. He further inhales
the smoke into his lungs, as European cigarette
smokers are learning to do. This causes a direct
absorption of the active principles of hemp and
tobacco into the blood. At the same time I see
no more marked physical deterioration in hemp-
smokers than in the tobacco smokers. I believe
that tobacco has produced physical degeneracy in
England among poor males in manufacturing
towns. This is greater than in the case of the
Indian hemp smoker, who lives in the open air,
has plenty oil coarse food, and drinks water. It
would be vain to prohibit the use of hemp drugs
in India without at the same time prohibiting the
use of tobacco.
40. Yes, largely. See U. Dutt, Materia Medica
of the Hindus, and elsewhere. Hemp is used in
cholera, dysentery, and malarious fever,—the three
scourges of India. It is the most valuable con-
stituent of chlorodyne, a most useful drug in the
early stages of cholera. It is almost a specific for
dysentery, useful in diarrhoea, and dyspepsia, is
a valuable diuretic, and is used in dysuria and
dysmenorrhæa. It is largely used in the latter
painful and common disorder by all classes of
native females, It is the most valuable stomach
sedative known to medical science, and there is
no other drug known that has similar tonic effects
in loss of appetite. It is far more useful than chloral
or opium in producing sleep, and is used largely
in mania, tetanus, and hydrophobia. Is largely
used by English dentists as an anodyne. These
are only a few of the medical uses to which it is
put.
41. I have already replied to this question fully.
To the tired devotee on a walk across India, say,
from Hurdwar to Puri, bhang acts as a pick-me-
up when food becomes distasteful. This food
would be, say, half a pound of coarse millet flour
and a handful of parched gram ; drink water. To
the Kahar, who often in these provinces will carry
a heavy palki 25 miles a day, bhang and ganja are
invaluable, as these classes assert that it enables
them to support fatigue. People with weak diges-
tions smoke ganja to excite a feeling of hunger.
It is used as a febrifuge and in insomnia.
I tried an experiment on myself with ganja,
and was assisted by a young lady aged 22. One
hundred grains of baluchur and two grains of
charas were macerated in three ounces of whiskey,
and we took an ounce each of the decoction. The
effects came on slowly in about 30 minutes.
The most marked symptom was anæsthesia over
the entire frame and a numbness of the lips and
face. Gradually a feeling of languor stole over
the body, accompanied by a sense of lightness, both
of us feeling as if we could soar in the air. It was
easy to fall into a dreamy condition, in which
sights and sounds did not distract you.
The young lady laughed more than she usually
does.
A contraction of the brow and ocular
muscles was a marked symptom in both cases.
An increased feeling of hunger, while under the
influence of the drug and the next day was also
noticed. Both the ganja and charas used were of
very poor quality. The effects of the first dose of
hemp are certainly not so depressing or so unpleasant
or so poisonous as the first dose of tobacco smoke.
42. I consider the use of bhang in moderation
beneficial, and in excess less injurious than alcohol.
With regard to the smoking of ganja and charas,
these are always smoked with tobacco, and I know
scores of people who use them in moderation with
impunity. Smoking hemp in excess is no more
injurious than smoking tobacco in excess, and many
of my friends have lost their health through the
tobacco habit. Tobacco commonly produces heart
disease and blindness, diminishes energy, and
causes a trembling of the hands; and tobacco
smokers are quite as much slaves to the habit as
hemp smokers.
43. They are quite inoffensive, and I have had
much difficulty in finding them out, though the
habit is common.
44. Produces a flow of thought always of a
happy nature ; also laughter and a remarkable
feeling of exhilaration. With gloomy natures
profound meditation and reveries. In smoking
the effects are almost immediate, in eating the
drug, come on more slowly, but last longer. The
after-effects of smoking are depression, but this
is one of the most marked symptoms of tobacco
smoking in the beginner, till the system becomes
tolerant to the narcotic. After-effects in the case
of bhang, a sharp feeling of hunger. Bhang
induces sleep; ganja and charas, when smoked
have a tendency to cause insomnia, and are used
for this purpose by musicians, nautch girls, etc.
45. Reply. Bhang in moderation and even
excess is less injurious than alcohol. It produces
neither moral nor physical degeneracy; on the
contrary it is a valuable tonic, sedative, and appe-
tiser. Smoking a mixture of ganja and tobacco
in moderation is not more injurious than tobacco
smoking alone, as practised in India, though it
would be absurd to argue that it can be beneficial.
It would not be justifiable to prohibit it in the
present state of civilization. With regard to its
producing insanity ; insanity in 90 per cent. of
cases is a brain disease, and people with diseased
brains naturally fly to drugs for relief. It would
be interesting to know what proportion of female
to male insanes there are in Indian lunatic asylums,
as females in India do not use hemp drugs as a rule.
I know many European insanes who used both
tea and tobacco to. excess, but do not believe that
their insanity was caused by these two undoubted-
ly noxious drugs. In one of these cases the
patient was relieved by the bursting of an abscess
on his brain, recovered perfectly, and continues to
use tea and tobacco to excess without any marked
injury. I am convinced that tea does quite as
much injury to females in England as ganja in
India. Particularly in the case of the poor, who
lay out a portion of their scanty funds in the pur-
chase of a drug that has no nutritive value,
banishes sleep and destroys the nerves, causes