176 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. X.
when ganja is used for local fumigation, the smoke from the unmixed drug is
employed. These two drugs appear to be rarely used for internal administration..
Occasionally an oil prepared with ganja and other ingredients is used as a
rubefacient. The expressed oil from the seeds is also used for a similar purpose.
Treatment of disease.
461. In discussing the diseases treated, we may take first diseases of the ner-
vous system. Witnesses refer to the use of the drugs
in the treatment of "brain fever," cramps, convul-
sions of children, headache, hysteria, neuralgia, sciatica, and tetanus. In certain of
these diseases, e.g., convulsions of children, neuralgia, and tetanus, the use of hemp
preparations has also been advocated by European practitioners. The late Sir W.
B. O'Shaughnessy, of Calcutta, appears to have been the first to use hemp resin in
tetanus. He found that in many cases it effectually arrested the progress of the
disease, but in the hands of others equally good results were not always obtained.
O 'Shaughnessy explains this by the fact that the use of hemp is so universal
among the lower classes, that it is only in those patients who are not habi-
tuated to it that beneficial effects are likely to ensue when the drug is administer-
ed medicinally. The treatment of tetanus by the inhalation of ganja smoke
has also been recommended. In the class of specific infectious diseases, hemp
drugs are stated to be used in hydrophobia, ague, remittent fever, cholera,"to
relieve burning symptoms in phthisis," dysentery, erysipelas, and gonorrhœa.
O'Shaughnessy more than 50 years ago used hemp resin with more or less
success in hydrophobia and cholera. In the treatment of dysentery the resin has
been found of much value by many European doctors, and excellent results
have been obtained with it. In addition to the medicinal use of the drug for
the treatment of cholera during epidemics, hemp drugs appear occasionally to be
used as prophylactics, and for a similar purpose the use of the drugs is recom-
mended in malarial areas to counteract the effects of "bad air and water." In
both cases hemp drugs probably act as indirect prophylactics, stimulating the
nervous system and allaying depression, thus serving much the same purpose as
the popular use of alcoholic beverages by the lower classes in European countries
during the prevalence of epidemics. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered
that when ganja is smoked as a prophylactic, it is always mixed with tobacco, and
yields members of the aromatic series of hydrocarbons, the lower members
of which are known to possess both antiseptic and antipyretic powers. In the
treatment of diseases of the respiratory organs, hemp drugs are stated to be used
in hay-fever, asthma, bronchitis, and coughs, inhalation of ganja smoke being
the usual mode of exhibiting the drug. Pounded bhang leaves are stated to
be sometimes used as a snuff in catarrh and "diseases of the nose and head."
In several diseases of the organs of digestion hemp drugs are prescribed, flatu-
lence, diarrhœa, dyspepsia, piles, and prolapsus ani being the chief. Bhang has also
been prescribed to check salivation. In diseases of the urinary organs hemp pre-
parations are used in diabetes, impotency, stricture, spermatorrhœa, hydrocele,
incontinence of urine, and swellings of the testicles. In orchitis a warm bhang
poultice applied on a warm fig leaf is recommended to be bandaged over the testi-
cles, and in hydrocele a similar poultice is spread on a castor-oil leaf. In impo-
tency and nervous debility the drug is doubtless used on account of its supposed
aphrodisiac power. Hemp drugs are also stated to be prescribed in diseases of
the heart, brain, spleen, in rheumatism, gout, and delirium tremens, and they are
also used in the treatment of scabies, guinea-worm, and boils. An oil prepared