CH. X.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 177
from bhang and other ingredients is prescribed in white leprosy, and bhang smok-
ing is stated to be used against the poisons of fish and scorpions.
Therapeutics.
462. In connection with the therapeutics of hemp drugs, one of the common-
est uses is for the relief of pain, the drugs being used
either as local or general anodynes. Thus bhang
poultices are frequently mentioned as soothing local applications to painful
parts; and poultices are used for inflamed piles and over the seat of pain in liver
and bowel diseases, and to check inflammation and erysipelas. Fumigation with
the smoke from burning ganja or bhang is also used as a local sedative in
piles. A small fragment of charas is placed in a carious tooth to relieve tooth-
ache. And the use of the drugs is also referred to for the relief of protracted
labour pains, dysmenorrhœa, pain in the stomach, cramps, and neuralgia. One
witness states that hemp drugs are used as a substitute for opium. In cases of
circumcision the drugs are used as anæsthetics, and a witness mentions that native
doctors on rare occasions substitute ganja for chloroform in operations. The tinc-
ture of Cannabis has been used as a local anæsthetic in extracting teeth (British
Journal of Dental Science).
Pulmonary sedative.
Asthma and bronchitis.
463. In asthma and bronchitis inhalation of ganja smoke appears to be very
frequently prescribed; while, on the other hand,
there is evidence which tends to indicate that both
affections may be induced by charas or ganja smoking indulged in as a habit.
The inhalation of ganja smoke may very possibly first act as a pulmonary
sedative, diminishing the secretion of mucus, and after long continuance
as an irritant increasing mucus secretion, and giving rise to a chronic
bronchitis. In considering the therapeutic action of ganja and charas smoke
in these affections, it must be remembered that the drugs are as a rule
smoked admixed with tobacco from a chillum, and the smoke inhaled into the
lungs in a similar manner as sometimes in cigarette smoking. In ganja smoking,
however, the inspiratory act is far greater and more prolonged, a larger volume of
smoke entering the lungs than in cigarette smoking. In smoking ordinary tobacco
the composition of the smoke will vary according to the amount of air
admitted during combustion, oxidation being thus more perfect in cigar than
in pipe smoking. In smoking tobacco from a pipe, pyridine is one of the chief
aromatic bases produced. In smoking a mixture of ganja or charas and tobac-
co, aromatic hydrocarbons must also be formed: pyridine and others from
the tobacco, and aromatic hydrocarbons also from the hemp drug, though
at present we are not in a position to indicate the precise nature of the hydrocar-
bons afforded by its dry distillation. The base pyridine which is found in pipe
smoke possesses the power, according to Germain Sée (Comptes Rend. Ac.
Science, 1886), of diminishing the reflex activity of the respiratory centre, and may
thus act as a pulmonary sedative; and, according to Lauder Brunton, the inhala-
tion of the vapour of pyridine has been used in asthma with beneficial effect.
Tobacco smoking has also been recommended in the treatment of asthma.
Irrespective, therefore, of the products afforded by the hemp drugs, the tobacco
smoke may be thus of value in both bronchitis and asthma. But long-continued
smoking, whether of ganja or of any other substance, doubtless results in the de-
position of finely divided carbonaceous matter in the lung tissues, and the presence
of other irritating substances in the smoke ultimately causes local irritation of the
45