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been admitted into the asylum, although they are
very numerous in the city of Dacca.
"An excessive indulgence in ganja, by those
unaccustomed to its use, will generally be followed
by insanity; but like dram drinking, as long as
the digestion remains good, it may be taken daily,
in gradually increasing doses, without much
injurious effect.
"A person who indulges in ganja, unless he be
a religious mendicant, is stigmatized as a reprobate.
The vice grows upon him; he neglects his family
and his business, falls into irregular and disorderly
habits, which alternate with periods of self-
reproach and mental depression.
"It is from among the labouring classes that the
lunatic, mad from the effects of ganja, comes.
"Of the 93 lunatics treated during 1872, and
whose insanity was referred to ganja, 67, or 72
per cent. were Hindus, 25 Muhammadans, and
one was a Native Christian. Sixteen of the 25
Muhammadans came from Dacca or its neighbour-
hood.
"I do not believe that ganja smoking is an
incentive to crime. In the records of this asylum
there is no mention of any crime having been
committed while the individuals were under the
influence of hemp.
"In a special report forwarded to Government in
December 1871, it was shown that of 99 crimi-
nal lunatics admitted between 1861 and 1870, 39
had their madness referred to ganja smoking;
but that in no instance was it alleged that the
crime was committed while the individual was
under the effects of ganja.
"During the past year, four criminal lunatics
were admitted whose insanity was referred to
ganja smoking. They were all Hindus. One was
charged with rape, one with theft, one with
murder, and one with grievous hurt.
"That many ganja smokers become criminals is
not to be wondered at.
"Few, if any, dacoits are to be found who do
not make use of the weed to inspire them with
false courage, but it is because they are thieves
that they do so and not because being smokers of
ganja they are thieves. The history of the use
of the hemp corroborates this. It has invariably
been used to nerve a man to perpetrate a deed
which he has already resolved on doing, and, as
the Ramawats hold, to impress on the memory a
train of thought that has already been pondered
over."
(James Wise, M.D.—Annual Report, Dacca
Lunatic Asylum for 1872.)
The Annual Reports for the following 20 years
repeat these opinions.
From these extracts it will be seen that for a
period of 30 years hemp drugs when abused have
always been credited with the power of producing
an insanity of various types. Generally a tran-
sient mania or melancholia or an acute dementia
(Dr. Wise, Ex. 17). Before formulating any
definite conclusions on this question, if such be
possible at all, I would like to point out some of
the difficulties under which all Superintendents
of Asylums have suffered with regard to patients
admitted for "Ganja-insanity."
The patients
belong nearly always to the lower and grossly
ignorant classes, to whose minds the relations of
cause and effect except in very ordinary affairs of
life are more or less unknown, and anything out-
side their ken is generally given up as unknow-
able. When pressed for reasons they give such as
are foolish or wilfully untrue. Little then is
likely to be obtained in the way of information
from the friends of the lunatics, if indeed they
are ever questioned. In certainly over 50 per
cent. of the insanes admitted into Asylums as
wandering lunatics under sections IV and V of
Act XXXVI of 1858, or as so-called criminal
lunatics under the provisions of Act X of 1882,
the descriptive rolls contain no mention of rela-
tives. The descriptive rolls (Forms 3 and 4) are
filled up, as a rule, by a native police inspector
on the information of a native policeman. These
men know from experience that unless they make
these rolls fairly presentable they will be returned
from the Asylum to the committing Magistrate
or Commissioner of Police, and that these officers
will in their turn call for more information from
their subordinates. To escape trouble and worry
the police are therefore averse to entering the
names of relatives (who might be called upon to
contribute to the maintenance of the insane person),
and are in the habit of accepting ganja, bhang, etc.,
as convenient causes of insanity which have long
been permitted to pass as probably correct. The
Medical Officers in charge of lunatic asylums have
long suspected this to be the case (Ex. 1, 2, 8, 13,
18, 19, 20, 21); Let it be granted, therefore,
that want of accuracy in ascertaining a cause
renders about 50 per cent. of the cases of ganja in-
sanity doubtful: it is not necessary to suppose that
these insanes never used hemp drugs at all. They
may, and probably do, represent persons insane
from other causes who are known to have used
hemp drugs occasionally or even habitually.
In
a certain proportion, too, it is not improbable that,
owing to the fact that these persons are of a
neuropathic diathesis, and in them a tendency to
insanity exists, and has always been latent, hemp
drugs in excess, or even in quantities which would
not damage a man of robust nervous constitution,
have acted as an exciting cause, making manifest
a mental weakness which might not have shown
itself in the absence of such indulgence. " What
is one man's meat is another man's poison."
Granting all this, we are still left with a number
of cases in which the abuse of hemp drugs, either
alone or combined with dhatura or spirits, has pro-
duced a violent and prolonged intoxication fol-
lowed by a demented, maniacal or melancholic
condition (see extracts and asylum cases). In
these cases recovery takes place in a very short
period indeed, in many of them the indivi-
duals are sane when they reach the asylum. (Ex.
13, 14, 20, etc.)
A nominal roll has been pre-
pared in the Dullunda Asylum for the past five
years, and from it I find that of the 108 persons
admitted whose insanity is put down to ganja or
bhang, 8 are distinctly stated to have been sane
on admission to the asylum. All these persons
remained sane. I have investigated particularly
the cases admitted during 1891 and 1892 and am
further of opinion that the number given (8 for
five years) does not represent the total of those who
were sane on admission, and that therefore there
can be no doubt that a certain proportion of the
cases admitted are not cases of insanity but, if
rightly reported in the first instance, merely cases
of intoxication which should never have been sent
to an asylum at all (see extracts). Although, as
I have already admitted, we seldom have good
proof that the so-called "Toxic insanity"
is due
to the abuse of hemp drugs, there is another
feature in these cases which points to a causation
which is transient, and from which recovery is
rapid. The average period under treatment in
the asylum at Dullunda of 55 cases discharged
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