441
become insane, and is now a Christian, and has
given up the use of the drug. He told me that
the aphrodisiac effects were those for which the
drug was principally taken. He also described
other effects, which I have mentioned in the last
paragraph of answer 45, and his statement appears
to me to be corroborated by the experiments of
Dr. Wood, which are described in the pamphlet I
present to the Commission. Dr. Wood's state-
ments at the close of the paper is opposed to the
aphrodisiac effects.
Question 55.—My first answer to the question
is purely hearsay, and I could not give any cases.
Question 58.—I know something of the present
cultivation of ganja, and I understand that it is
carried on under Government patronage, and that
Government fosters the cultivation. I have not
seriously thought about the precise manner in
which Government fosters the cultivation. I am
not prepared to say whether the position of Gov-
ernment in regard to ganja is analogous to its
position in regard to opium—in fact, I do not
know what the system of cultivation is; but my
information is that it is under the fostering care
of Government. My impression is derived chiefly
from Government excise reports. The detailed
information about superintendence of the crop and
the measurement of the land gives the impression.
The cultivation, I believe, requires great care, es-
pecially in regard to the eradication of the male
plants, and my impression is that Government
supervision is directed towards this end and the
success of the crop generally. My impression was
strengthened by reference in the reports to the
Sibpur experiments in cultivating the plant for
ganja. That was in the reports for 1891-92. It is
in reference to this impression only that I use the
words "its own cultivation." If I found the
facts different, I should propose a different plan
of prohibition.
The wild crop, having the male and female
plants growing together, cannot possibly produce
ganja of such a strong kind as is produced by
cultivation, in which the male plant is most care-
fully destroyed. This is what I mean by the last
sentence of my answer 58. I refer only to ganja.
See "Treatise on Therapeutics," 6th edition, 1886, p. 263.
Paper put in by the REVD. MR. PHILLIPS,
appended to his evidence.
Personal testimony of H. C.WOOD, M.D.,
LL.D., Neurologist to the Philadelphia
Hospital.
"Some years since, in experimenting with an
extract made from the American plant, I took
a very large dose, and described the result as
follows—(Proceedings, American
Philosophical
Society, 1869, vol. xi, p. 226):—
"About half-past four P.M., September 23rd, I
took most of the extract. No immediate symptoms
were produced. About seven P.M. a professional
call was requested, and, forgetting all about the
hemp, I went out and saw my patient.
Whilst
writing the prescription, I became perfectly obli-
vious to surrounding objects, but went on writing
without any check to or deviation from the ordi-
nary series of mental acts connected with the
process, at least that I am aware of. When the
recipé was finished, I suddenly recollected where
I was, and, looking up, saw my patient sitting
quietly before me. The conviction was irresistible
that I had sat thus many minutes, perhaps hours,
and directly the idea fastened itself that the hemp
had commenced to act, and had thrown me into a
trance-like state of considerable duration, during
which I had been stupidly sitting before my
wondering patient. I hastily arose and apologized
for remaining so long, but was assured I had only
been a very few minutes. About seven and a
half P.M. I returned home. I was by this time
quite excited, and the feeling of hilarity now
rapidly increased. It was not a sensuous feeling
in the ordinary meaning of the term; it was not
merely an intellectual excitation; it was a sort of
bien-etre—the
very opposite to malaise, It did
not come from without; it was not connected with
any passion or sense. It was simply a feeling of
inner joyousness; the heart seemed buoyant be-
yond all trouble; the whole system felt as though
all sense of fatigue were for ever banished; the
mind gladly ran riot, free constantly to leap from
one idea to another, apparently unbound from its
ordinary laws. I was disposed to laugh; to make
comic gestures; one very frequently recurrent
fancy was to imitate with the arms the motions
of a fiddler and with the lips the tune supposed
to be playing. There was nothing like wild
delirium, nor any hallucinations that I remember.
At no time had I any visions, or at least any that
I can now call to mind; but a person who was
with me at that time states that once I raised my
head and exclaimed, 'Oh, the mountains I the
mountains!'
Whilst I was performing the vari-
ous antics already alluded to I knew very well I
was acting exceedingly foolishly, but could not
control myself. I think it was about eight
o'clock when I began to have a feeling of numb-
ness in my limbs, also a sense of general uneasi-
ness and unrest, and a fear lest I had taken an
overdose. I now constantly walked about the
house; my skin to myself was warm, and in fact
my whole surface felt flushed; my mouth and
throat were very dry; my legs put on a strange,
foreign feeling, as though they were not a part of
my body. I counted my pulse and found it one
hundred and twenty, quite full and strong. A
foreboding, an undefined, horrible fear, as of im-
pending death, now commenced to creep over me;
in haste I sent for medical aid. The curious sen-
sations in my limbs increased. My legs felt as if
they were waxen pillars beneath me. I remember
feeling them with my hand, and finding them,
as I thought at least, very firm, the muscles all in
a state of tonic contraction. About eight o'clock
I began to have marked 'spells,' periods when all
connection seemed to be severed between the exter-
nal world and myself. I might be said to have
been unconscious during these times, in so far that
I was oblivious to all external objects, but on
coming out of one, it was not a blank, dreamless
void upon which I looked back, a mere empty
space, but rather a period of active but aimless life.
I do not think there was any connected thought
in them; they seemed simply wild reveries,
without any binding cord,—each a mere chaos
of disjointed ideas. The mind seemed freed from
all its ordinary laws of association, so that it
passed from idea to idea, as it were, perfectly at
random. The duration of these spells to me was
very great, although they really lasted but for a
few seconds to a minute or two. Indeed I now
entirely lost my power of measuring time. Se-
conds seemed hours; minutes seemed days; hours
seemed infinite. Still I was perfectly conscious
during the intermissions between the paroxysms.
3 N