281
even three times, besides what he happened to
consume with his friends in the tikhanas. I learn
that he died from exhaustion and bed-sores after
three months' lingering illness.
47. No, for in the family history of many of the
cases recorded by me, I find that, although the
parents are habitual consumers, the children have
not acquired the habit, and, further, I can say
from personal observations, that the children of
moderate consumers are in no particular way
affected by the habit.
48. Enquiry in this direction has been met with
very puzzling results. In the excessive consumer,
the history of the possibility of an inherent
syphilitic or scrofulous taint had always to be con-
sidered, which invariably tended to mar conclusions.
I mention this because while in some cases the
children have appeared to me to be tolerably
healthy, in other cases, where a comparatively
small amount of the drug was consumed daily, the
offsprings were of exceedingly weak bodily constitu-
tion, pigeon-chested, thin-haired, flabby little
mites.
In four cases that came under my observation,
the children were decidedly rachitic. Such condi-
tions as bad feeding and insanitary surroundings
add no little to the difficulties in solving this
question. Generally speaking, it appears that even
the excessive use of the drug does not exert any
material influence upon the health of the children.
49. No, but prostitutes use it largely as a
stimulant, with the object, it is said, of being able
to bear the strain of their nefarious practice.
Hemp, no matter in what form, used in moderation,
does not tend to produce impotence. The history
of many of my cases helps me to entertain this
opinion. In some of my cases, more children had
been born, within a given period, after than before
the time the father had taken to bhangdrinking.
50. Yes, by those in advanced age, generally,
and by the young of dissipated habits. In the
form of majum, the native doctor prescribes it for
this purpose. Prostitutes use bhang only, but not
ganja or charas, and then only in the day to
procure sleep. Yes, more injurious, because, with
the general breaking down of the constitution,
impotence may follow, and possibly insanity, or at
least a mental weakness bordering on insanity.
Not directly; in a few of my cases where impotence
had occurred, the lowering of the general health
from venereal excesses seemed primarily at fault.
56. Among my cases I have met with seven of
dhatura admixture, but none of the other drugs
specified. Opium, employed not as an admixture,
but as an additional narcotic to the use of hemp, is
of pretty frequent occurrence. The former drug
is combined with bhang, in moderation, in order to
increase its intoxicating effects. My observations
lead me to suppose that opium imparts to the sys-
tem tolerance to resist the influence of bhang and
ganja, for I find that opium-eaters always consume
and bear well these drugs in moderate quantities,
especially bhang.
These admixtures refer to personal consumption.
With regard to bhang or ganja used in excess
together with an admixture of dhatura, I have
but two cases, and in both the latter drug was
employed to strengthen the potation. Employed
for the purpose of administration to others, I have
only hearsay evidence to give. I am told that
dhatura is sometimes thus clandestinely added
either to bhang or ganja, but not to charas, and
generally from mischievous or criminal motives,
to procure that fanatical excitement as witnessed
in some individuals during the Moharram or Holi
festivals, or that mental disturbance tantamount
to insanity constituting the cases known to medi-
cal jurists as "running amuck." In the middle
of 1887 a number of such cases occurred, and I
am informed that in all of them dhatura was
employed as an admixture with bhang, and that
the mental excitement produced, under which the
individuals were ready to perpetrate the most
atrocious crimes, was entirely due to dhatura.
57. I know of no such cases.
The conclusion I have arrived at with regard
to the uses and effects of hemp is, briefly, as
follows:—That bhang is on the whole, though
habitually consumed, a harmless drug taken in
moderate quantities, and that, used as an intoxi-
cant, it compares very favourably, in many points,
both with alcohol and with opium.
In the first place, it has cheapness on its side to
recommend it, thus bringing it within the means of
the poor, in whom, in the declining period of life,
an intoxicant is as serviceable, if not more so, as in
the rich. What, perhaps, is better still is the fact
that while taken in moderation, like alcohol, it
invigorates the system and causes exhilaration;
taken in large doses, it is a " quiet " intoxicant com--
pared with " boisterous " alcohol, and thus free from
the attendant danger to person, or property, or
domestic happiness, which only too often accompany
the use of alcohol. There is also but little ten-
-dency for the habit of bhang-drinking to settle in
the system, and in this respect it differs from the
habit of opium-eating.
Another important feature in the use of bhang
is its peculiar suitableness in reference to the climate
of the country (India), and especially of Sind. In
this province, where the heat for the greater part
of the year is so great and so oppressive, general
and indiscriminate use of alcohol would, I feel
sure, play sad havoc with the constitution of many,
and in my mind raises visions of many apoplectic
brains and congested livers, of dangers resulting
from an overworked heart and overstrained kidneys,
consequences which are now of comparatively rare
occurrence. Again, owing to the excessive heat,
impairment or loss of appetite is not at all an un--
common thing, and in this respect, too, the pecu--
liar adaptibility of the drug is made manifest; also
the fact of its being used in combination with
bhang massala, for the mixture helps to keep the
bowels lax, an important precaution against the
deteriorating effects of the weather.
The general physiological action of alcohol is to
build up the tissues of the body, tending thus to
give rise to corpulency; hemp on the other hand
tends to diminish corpulency, and is therefore a
fitter intoxicant for use in a hot climate than
alcohol.
As regards diseases incidental to the use of bhang,
these cannot be said to be either more common or
more disastrous than those following the use of
alcohol, or, for the matter of that, of opium.
Insanity is not a consequence of bhang-drinking,
nor, indeed, directly either of ganja or charas
smoking. A pre-existing tendency towards mental
aberration, natural or acquired, from such predis--
posing causes as a weak intellect or moral deprav--
ity, respectively, will be found to be primarily at
fault, such depravity being as much due to the de--
grading effects of a religious constitution, weak in
its moral precepts and lax in the exercise of moral
restraint, as to the baneful influence of bad example
and evil social influences.
With regard to the use of hemp as a medicinal
agent, I have a few remarks to offer. The drug,
vol. vii,
2 Q