269
harm physically, mentally and morally. A maw-
ali is a man no one relies on. If he does, he
will certainly repent his folly.
To the other questions under this head a gene
- -
ral negative reply may be given.
Mental anxiety or brain disease (the latter
being a rather vague term) is never treated in
Sind by resort to bhang, ganja and charas ; it is
usually liquor, either Native or European, which
is resorted to as the Hindustani and Persian
quotations show :—
Shirab shouk pinese hama dookh dard jati
hain.
Labalab bekun dam bedam nosh kun.
Ghumai hardo alim framosh kun.
46. Physical aspects.— A mawali is never, as
a rule, a stout well-to-do-looking individual ; on
the contrary, he is a person of a lean, skinny,
wrinkled, mangy, nervous appearance. In Sind
when respectable men meet, they embrace and ask
one another are you getting stout, fat, strong,
h e a l t h y , a n d c o n t e n t ? T h e
m a w a l ii
s
opposite of all these qualities ; although his lin-
gual expressions are the same, to him they can
have no meaning. This wrinkled or dried-up
state of the constitution shows that nutrition is
profoundly changed. This arises from the ex-
cessive metabolism of the nervous elements from
constant stimulation. To a healthy man engaged
in the struggle of existence the daily disturbances
to his nervous system arising from his environ-
ment are usually sufficient to keep up the equili-
brium between assimilation and dis-assimilation;
but the constitution of the mawali has, in addi-
tion, to sustain the excessive waste that goes on
from over-stimulation of his nervous system by
hemp drugs. A gradual deterioration, therefore,
of his nervous system takes place, not only from
excessive stimulation, but from want of sleep ;
for he rarely sleeps unless during the influence of
intoxication, which lasts from two to three hours.
The primary effect on the nervous system would
be accompanied by a corresponding deterioration
of the muscular system associated by an impair
-ment of the assimilative power of the cellular
elements of the nervous and muscular tissues,
and also of the glandular elements. The general
normal expenditure being thus reduced, appetite
would be impaired, and dysentery or any other
disease might arise from exhaustion. Bronchitis
and asthma might arise from the irritation to which
the bronchial tubes are continually exposed from
the inhalation of the drug. Laziness would be
the consequence, therefore, of the general dyscra--
sia just described.
From what has been above mentioned, and
from the fact that mental and moral phenomena
are now believed by recent authorities on the
subject to be subjective states, produced by the
action of external incident forces upon the
cerebrospinal nervous system, the inner or sub-
jective sides of objective phenomena corresponding
to co-existences, and sequences in space and time ;
then, a priori, deterioration of the nervous system
would necessarily produce alterations in the de-
grees of intensity in the manifestations of mental
and moral phenomena generally, congruous with
that mentioned above as manifested by the physi-
ological deterioration of general nutrition char-
acteristic of the mawali, whose morals are, as a
rule, as mangy as his appearance. It may be said
to impair, while it also excites, the intellect ac-
cording to the degree of administration and stage
of the periodic action of the drug; but the general
result is, not so much a weakening of the ac-
uteness of the intellect, as a general immor-
ality and debauchery ; and it is astonishing how
long these people will go on living on the borders
of crime, and contrive to keep clear of the Magis-
trate and the police. But the general result is ,
generally speaking, the Jail or the Lunatic Asy-
lum, or early cremation, or an early grave.
In cases before the Commission, it has formed,
as a rule, the exciting cause. In the history of
the admissions into the asylum for the year 1892,
it will be seen that the excessive indulgence in
the use of hemp drugs formed the exciting causes,
for no hereditary insanity could be traced in any
of the cases which Mr. Thattumal and I ex-
amined.
The type may be generally classified as mania,
and as characterised by an exaltation or liveliness
of manner, and a restlessness as would be seen in
one in a state of semi-intoxication, accompanied
by incoherence, want of the power of co-ordination
of the relations of the ideas of space or time, or
of the relations of the various memories developed
b y t h e v i s u a l , t a c t u a l a n d a c o u s t i c s e n s a t i o n s ; i m p a i r m e n t o r t h e c o m p l e t e l o s s o f t h e s e n s e o f
shame (a good indicator of the moral state)
manifested by walking about naked; defalcating
and micturating whenever and wherever nature
prompts them ; and talking to some imaginary
individual or muttering to themselves, and having
a quiet laugh or chuckle when alone. This is a
summary of the general features of the type of
the cases admitted in 1892, and from observing
mawalis going through the various stages of in-
toxication till unconsciousness and sleep supervene,
I could not, somehow, help thinking that in cases
produced by the excessive use of hemp drugs, the
type of insanity and its modifications simulated or
were to a certain extent identical with the latter
stages of intoxication in the mawali. The clus-
ter of symptoms accompanying the various stages
of intoxication are not ,to be traced as co-exis-
ting permanently in the same individual, although
they may appear during the time insanity lasts,
but in a number of lunatics.
A short analysis of the cases before the Com-
mission will show the grounds on which this
parallelism has been traced. As a preamble, it
may be remarked that the co-ordination of the
ideational centres—visual, tactual, acoustic—and
the intelligent expression of ideas in articulate
language form the highest effort which a human
being is capable of. During the period of
intoxi-cation, when the ganja is circulating amongst a
circle of mawalis, one would think that all their
wits were leaving them, crowded out as it were by
over-stimulation ; and it is astonishing how infec-
tious this hilarity and outflow of wit and nonsense
become to the calm observer. But as intoxication
proceeds, or when the equilibrium between waste
and repair is suspended by the slow poisoning of
the blood circulating round the grey matter of the
convolutions of the brain ; when semiptosis and
partial congestion of the conjunctiva take place,
co-ordination of the ideas begins to fail with
articulate language. The month seems drier, more
effort is required to keep up the excitement; the
voice becomes huskier; more lung pressure is
necessary ; the period of co-ordination is past ; a
sort of amnesia supervenes ; language becomes
automatic ribaldry and slang. When the charas
begins to circulate, they do not any longer all speak
together , some are silent and have had enough,
and more than they are able to carry ; others con-
tinue till ultimately silence and sleep supervene ;
their state is temporarily similar to an animal