141
lead to the habitual use of it or produce any injury.
In the North-Western Provinces this custom is
also held as religious, but they use it on the day
of Holi.
In the hot months they take regularly daily as
thandai, and at Muttra I have seen the Chaubes
take it daily in large quantity all the year round,
and men and children indulge in it. With regard
to the custom of the people of other provinces, I
do not know.
Charas and ganja are not used as such by the
people at large. The habitual smokers indulge in
them on the night of Shivratri, etc.
86. I do not know.
37. From a habitual smoker of charas and ganja
I have heard that one can be substituted for the
other. He has been to Bengal, where he used to
smoke ganja, smoked charas in the North-Western
Provinces and Kabul. His opinion is that the
intoxication produced by charas is stronger than
that of ganja, and the charas of Kabul is stronger
in its effects than the Indian product. The intoxi-
cation of bhang, taken in moderate doses, is of a
hilarious nature, as I have stated before. Larger
doses produce vomiting and sleep or wakefulness,
with sensation as if the house is moving, his cot
is taken up and thrown down alternately, headache,
dryness of throat and delirium.
The intoxication produced by smoking charas or
ganja, according to the opinion of my informant,
is instantaneous. It produces strength of mind
and body, cheerfulness, and an increased desire for
food and company.
39. The smoking of charas or ganja is more
injurious than the drinking of bhang, as I have
known cases of lunacy produced by smoking these
drugs, and notably the Chaubes of Muttra, who are
habitual consumers of bhang in large quantity,
seldom become insane.
40. Bhang is generally used with linseed meal
or atta as poultice to alleviate pain. I have used
this drug as fumigation in cases of painful pile
with benefit. Ganja is used by Bengal physicians
to prepare anodyne oil. I do not know whether
they are used in cattle diseases.
41. Moderate use they say is beneficial.
(a) Produces appetite.
(b) Alleviates fatigue.
(c) I cannot say.
(d) I do not know.
42. Moderate use is harmless, as I have not
seen any bad effect from their moderate use.
44. The immediate effect of smoking charas or
ganja, as my informants state, is the production
of a peculiar sensation on the head, followed by
intoxication of a pleasing nature. It lasts a few
hours, and when it passes off, it produces desire
for more.
45. They do, except bhang. The constitution
becomes weak, digestion is impaired, produces a
hawking cough, and I have seen cases of a6thma
produced in those who are habitual smokers of
ganja or charas. They certainly produce laziness.
The above symptoms I have observed in those
who have not the means of taking nourishing food.
Habitual moderate consumers of these drugs
seldom suffer from the above injuries when they
are men of means.
I do not think insanity is produced in those
subjects of ganja or charas-smokers who use the
drugs regularly in moderate quantity.
46. Insanity is certainly produced by the
smoking of these drugs in excess. I have seen
cases of acute mania in whom the smoking of
these drugs is merely an exciting cause. They
were people who were not in the habit of using
the drug regularly, but took it for the first time
either by mistake or by the inducement of others.
These cases rapidly recover.
I have seen cases of insanity in habitual con-
sumers, in whom the smoking is a predisposing
cause, the exciting being produced by loss of
money or family bereavement. These people
suffer generally from partial moral or intellectual
mania, and, in most of them, the disease is difficult
of cure.
47. I do not think so.
48. At Muttra, as I stated, the children of the
Chaubes drink bhang with their father, but with
regard to charas or ganja-smoking no such heredi-
tary tendency can be seen. A ganja or charas-
smoker's children seldom walk in the footsteps of
their fathers in this respect.
49. Sometimes. The prostitutes, some of them
at least. I do not think it is injurious in moderate
doses, and I do not think it produces impotence.
59. Excessive use of any of these drugs, I think,
produces an opposite effect, i.e., it destroys sexual
desire and produces impotence.
56 and 57. I do not know.
96. Evidence of ASSISTANT SURGEON NOBIN CHANDRA CHAKRAVARTI, Brahmin, in
charge of the Agra Thomson Hospital, and Lecturer on Medicine, Medical
School, Agra.
1. As a medical man of twenty-six years' stand-
ing, I have had opportunities, few though they
have been, of coming in contact with persons
having had anything to do with the hemp drugs.
2. The names given by Dr. Prain to the
different preparations of the hemp plant are
current in the North-Western Provinces.
19. Yes.
23. No; as far as I know.
28. The average daily allowance of charas for
(a) is about 24 grains, costing one anna, and for
(b) triple or four times the quantity. Bhang is
generally used by the Hindus in quantities aver-
aging daily about half a chittack for (a) and 4
chittacks for (b), costing half anna and four
annas respectively. Ganja is not so much used in
these provinces as in Bengal; and charas is just
the reverse.
29. Dhatura is occasionally mixed with bhang
to increase its intoxicating properties.
Bhang massala, as used by the people of
Muthra and Agra, consists of cardamoms, cayenne
pepper, aniseed, liquorice, rose leaves, seeds of
khira and kukri, Cucumis saliva and Cucumis
mclo, and kasni flowers for summer, and simply
pepper and almonds for winter.
30. Charas and ganja are not so much smoked
in solitude as in company, and very few low caste