236 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. XII.
drug cases and the large proportion (nearly 2 to 1) of error in the cases accept-
ed and recorded as hemp drug cases in Dr. Crombie's time too much
weight should not be attached to his views regarding the clinical features
of hemp drug insanity. The results of a careful analysis and examination of his
cases corresponds on the whole pretty accurately with the examination of the
cases of 1892 for all India made by the Commission. Looking back at his work
in Dacca from his present point of view, Dr. Crombie seems to have thought
that he had had some experience of special value, but the impression appears
on examination to be due to a mistake of memory. There is practically nothing
that differentiates his experience or the practice of the Dacca Asylum from
that of other Superintendents and other asylums in India.
Explanation of the use of these
worthless statistics.
520. It may well seem extraordinary that statistics based on such absolutely
untrustworthy material should have been submitted
year after year in the asylum reports. It is extra-
ordinary, and cannot certainly be fully justified. The following considerations
serve to a certain extent to explain this extraordinary fact. In the first place,
as is pointed out by several Superintendents, these officers did not know what
grade of police or what kind of agency was employed in the inquiry. They
believed that they were bound to accept, and justified in accepting, without
question what came to them with an appearance of official authority. In the
second place, all the Superintendents, except those in the towns of Madras and
Bombay, have their asylum work in addition to other medical duties. They
have found themselves unable to devote that amount of time and care to their
asylum work which would enable them to speak as experts or to supply infor-
mation of any real value. Some of the best of them have stated to the members
of the Commission who visited the asylums that they constantly found them-
selves subordinating the asylum work to duties which appeared more pressing
and more important. In the third place, as already pointed out, they have
been so pressed to give statistical information that they have often done so
without considering whether it could be regarded as scientifically or even reason-
ably accurate. In the fourth place, most of the Superintendents, though they
had long practised medicine in this country, had never seen any of the effects
of hemp drugs except their alleged effects in producing insanity in the cases
attributed in the papers to the drugs. Several Superintendents speak clearly of
this ignorance of the effects of the drugs. The remarks of three may be quoted
as being specially interesting. Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Leapingwell (Viza-
gapatam) says: "I should myself have put down ganja as the cause of insanity
in any case where I examined the friends if they merely said the man used
ganja and I could get no other cause, as I did not discriminate between the
excessive and moderate use. I should go much more carefully into the
matter now, since I have in the course of the present inquiry learned so
much more about the use of the drugs." Surgeon-Major Cobb, of Dacca,
says: "As to the effects of ganja generally, I should say that until I began to
study the question with a view to give evidence before the Commission, al-
though I had a vague notion that ganja smoking was prevalent among the lower
classes in Bengal, I had no idea that the practice was as common as I have
since found it to be." Surgeon-Major Willcocks, of Agra, says: "Ordinarily
it has been the practice to enter hemp drugs as the cause of insanity where it
has been shown that the patient used these drugs. I cannot say precisely
why this is the practice. It has come down as the traditional practice. As
a matter of fact, until recently I looked on these drugs as very poisonous. As I