234 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. XII.
in Burma were ostensibly based on the lunatic asylum returns which were quot-
ed by more than one Chief Commissioner, special reference being made to
the figures for the Dacca Asylum. This special reference to this asylum and
the fact that it is situated in the most important ganja-consuming tract in
India were among the reasons why the Commission summoned Surgeon-
Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie (Bengal witness No. 104) as a witness; for
he had been seven years Superintendent of that asylum. Before the Opium
Commission also, and in an interesting discussion on opium published as a
Supplement to the Indian Medical Gazette of July 1892, Dr. Crombie had
incidentally spoken strongly of the evil effects of hemp drugs as seen in his
asylum experience. The Commission hoped therefore that Dr. Crombie might
be found to have devoted special attention to his asylum work, and to be able to
speak with exceptional authority. He informed the Commission in his written
evidence that "nearly thirty per cent. of the inmates of lunatic asylums in
Bengal are persons who have been ganja smokers, and in a very large pro-
portion of these I believe ganja to be the actual and immediate cause of their
insanity. But though I am not prepared to say that the moderate use of ganja
is never the cause of insanity, it is most frequently the result of long excessive
use, and especially of occasional debauches with the drug. It has the same
relationship to insanity in India that alcohol has in Europe, and may be the
cause of fierce maniacal excitement of short duration (as in delirium tremens)
or of a chronic cheerful mania which is the characteristic insanity of Indian
asylums. It has not the same tendency to lead to dementia, the result of tissue
changes in the brain, as alcohol has. Like alcohol, it will especially lead to in-
sanity in persons of deficient self-control who take to the drug as a relief from
mental trouble. Both forms of ganja insanity, the acute and chronic, are dis-
tinguishable by the symptoms. (See separate memorandum.)"
These views, which are stated in greater detail in a separate memorandum,
are based entirely on his experience as Superintendent of the Dacca Asylum and
as visitor to other asylums; for Dr. Crombie says: "In my practice outside of
lunatic asylums my experience is confined to very few cases, only two or three
in the whole course of my service, of ganja intoxication brought to hospital."
The Commission were anxious to ascertain how far these views might be
regarded as having authority. They accordingly examined the registers and
case books of the Dacca Asylum for all the years during which Dr. Crombie
had been Superintendent, and perused his reports.
They were unable to find
in these records any ground for thinking that Dr. Crombie's practice differed
from that of other Asylum Superintendents, or gave him special opportunities of
knowledge. They took the registers for these years and also the papers for all
the hemp drug cases of 1887 (Dr. Crombie's last year at Dacca) to Calcutta
to discuss them with Dr. Crombie. That discussion is contained in the record
of his oral evidence.
First, as to procedure, Dr. Crombie told the Commission that the de-
scriptive roll is "by no means trustworthy," but that "subsequent discoveries"
were made in the asylum by examination of friends or of the lunatic on recovery
and by other means, and that the entries in the asylum books would be altered
accordingly. "This," he said, "was my practice." The Commission had found
no trace of this practice in the asylum records; and they showed Dr.