275
entries. My "reasonable belief" as to cause was
based on reading the papers and seeing whether
they showed a probable cause of insanity, and on
inquiry from the lunatic. I see the case of Kamil
Saheb shows him as having shown no signs of im-
provement and as having nothing ascertainable as
to history. The case book shows nothing. I must
have found out from him, 1 suppose. I must
have found that he took ganja. I presume that
if a man in his state said he took ganja it would
just be as reliable as if he were sane.
I know nothing at all about what would be the
moderate or immoderate use of the drugs. The
admission of the habit was therefore as a rule
quite sufficient for my purpose.
I have no knowledge whatever of the extent
to which the drug is used.
There are not, I think, any typical symptoms of
hemp drug insanity. I really do not know any
typical symptoms. These cases are mostly cases
of acute mania. If I had a case of acute mania
and the admission of the ganja habit, and other
causes were unknown, I should have no hesitation
in ascribing the insanity to hemp drugs. Causes
are nearly always unknown as a matter of fact.
That is, people enter causes readily enough; and
ganja is frequently entered. Ganja has a bad
name, and when people find a lunatic takes ganja
they stick it down. But trustwortly statements
as to cause are generally wanting. In cases where
I find an alcoholic habit I should assign the in-
sanity to alcohol if I could reasonably do so.
That is I should do so in the absence of any other
cause; for alcohol is a most notable cause of in-
sanity. Case No. 11 of the 1892 cases is one
which might be ascribed to either ganja or
alcohol. In the case of alcohol I should of course
discriminate between the moderate and excessive
use. In the case of ganja I could not. It is
much easier for a European to judge of alcoholism.
than of drugs. I therefore feel very little con-
fidence in the diagnosis I have made, ascribing
these cases to hemp drugs.
85. Evidence of SURGEON-MAJOR W. G. KING, Acting Sanitary Commissioner, Nadias.
1. I have been in medical practice in the Army
and Civil Medical Departments of the Madras
Presidency for nearly twenty years.
2. 1 believe the term "charas" would not be
generally recognized in this presidency. The
flower tops alone seem to be employed, and de-
coctions made from them are mixed with other
substances; where flower tops would be incon-
venient, ganja and bhang alone seem applied.
29. The flower tops are usually sold mixed with
tobacco for chewing in small packets.
30. It is usually practised in company. A
group of men will pass round the special pipe
en which with gourak a small quantity of ganja
decoction has been mixed. The smoking is on
these occasions not carried to an extent to cause
more than slight exaltation. In large popula-
tions, but few will be found who indulge to an
extent to secure the full effects. These resort to
ganja dens, where both men and women are
found.
31. I think large numbers indulge at intervals
without forming the ganja habit. Only the
naturally vicious part of the population take to
the habit permanently. The old profligate is the
most likely victim.
36. The two cases have in practice scarcely any
relation to each other.
39. The eating or drinking of any form of
the drug necessarily is the more likely method of
producing full effects than by smoking. In my
opinion there can be no doubt numbers of natives
are rendered lunatics by use of the drug, who
would. never have become mentally deranged
failing the use of this powerful disturbant of the
nervous system.
40. Native doctors prescribe it largely as an
aphrodisiac, and slightly as an anodyne.
41. (a) No.
(b) Yes. But only in the sense that it is a
stimulant. The system would suffer for the energy
displayed.
(c) No.
(d) I know nothing good of the drug, when
given otherwise than in medicinal doses.
vol. vi.
42. No. I believe the moderate use of ganja,
if habitual and used otherwise than to gain a
specific result therapeutically, to be harmful.
44. The perceptive faculties are excited and
perverted. The obedient servant of half an hour
before is converted into an impudent, self-assert-
ing, and unreasoning rascal.
45. (a) In moderate doses the physique is not
impaired, but the perceptive and moral faculties
degenerate.
(b) and (c) No.
(d) In the habitual smoker bronchitis is fre-
quent.
(e) Yes; it impairs the moral sense, induces
laziness, immorality and debauchery.
(f) As to exciting cause, etc., ride answer
No. 39. Insanity following use of ganja is, in
a larger number of cases than those of ordinary
type, curable. Insanity is usually induced by
a relapse of the habit.
(g) Cases certainly occur where the drug is
taken to assuage anxiety, but they are so rare
that the effect on the total is not worth taking
into consideration.
Whilst admitting insanity may induce its use,
I think the usual history is that the debauchee,
a man deficient in mental control, takes ganja
till he becomes insane, as a result of constant
and undue excitation of the nervous system.
46. The mental faculties of the man who is
addicted to the use of the drug to excess are
always impaired, and it becomes rather a question
in considering such cases as to what is insanity
and what not. The action of the drug in re-
lation to insanity I believe simply to be wearing
out of that part of the nervous system supplying
imaginative faculties by over-excitation, the action
being on a par with the induction of more or
less complete impotence by over-excitation of the
sexual organs.
47. I should think it is never hereditary, and
that moderate use does not affect the children of
the moderate consumer.
50. It is administered by prostitutes in ex-
cessive doses, and its use is a frequent cause of
impotence. I have known a case of absolute
2 P 2