REPORT BY DR. GEORGE WATT, M.B., C.M., C.I.E.
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rows of cells, thus producing intercellular chambers of considerable length. A point of
importance that may be here specially mentioned is the fact that excretary deposits of the
nature here discussed are made from the very earliest period of individual life; in other
words, anterior to the formation of even vascular tissue and consequently long before the
stage at which flowers and fruits are formed.
But there are further purely epidermal receptacles of secretion quite distinct from those
discussed above. To this class belongs, according to the commonly accepted views, the
deposits of the narcotic in the hemp plant. Epidermal receptacles are generally designated
as glands, but in the vast majority of cases these contain only ethereal oils with resins
dissolved in them. And there are two classes of glands—those located just below the
epidermis and those above it; the latter are mostly hairs or stings. The viscid condition
of the surface of many leaves is due to epidermal glands, and in some cases the fluid contents
of such glands possess a characteristic odour peculiar to the species. The formation of
glands and the nature of their contents are essentially different from the corresponding
features detailed above regarding the laticiferous system and its excretary deposits, and
this distinction is of vital importance. Glands originate from a single mother-cell which
undergoes division until a rounded mass of tissue is produced, the cells of which are smaller
than those of the closely-fitting surrounding tissue, and they contain a peculiar form of
protoplasm. Later on the central cells of this special structure become absorbed, thus
forming a cavity which contains the solution of the cells and their contents, the secretionary
product of glands. It is thus doubtful how far the contents of glands can be called excretary
deposits. They are more frequently specific secretions formed for a definite purpose in the
life history of the plant. Such, while discussing the glands of the hop, "says the so-called
Hashish arises similarly in the long-stalked many-celled capitate hairs of the female plant
of the Indian hemp." But I suspect that in the plant as met with in India there is some-
thing more than this, and that microscopical investigations are likely to reveal special
developments by which the resinous narcotic has assumed the character of an excretary
discharge. At all events the formation of the narcotic is not, so far as my observation
goes, confined to the female plant. But I have already qualified my opinions as those
based on casual observation, and I need therefore only add that the above review of the most
recently published theory of the deposition, permanently or temporarily, of various chemical
substances within the tissues of plants has been given with the object of showing the
possibility of there existing in Cannabis some structural modifications by which the narco-
tic is deposited within the leaves of one form (the bhang-yielding plant); appears on
the surface of the female flowering-tops (especially if fecundation be prevented) of another,
the ganja plant; and exudes from the surface of the leaves, stems and fruits of still a
third—the charas plant. And I would even venture to go further and suggest that
when the chemistry of the substance is fully worked out it will be found to vary quite as
greatly in these three forms of Cannabis sativa as does the inspissated laticiferous fluid
(opium) of the various cultivated races of Paparer somniferum. Such variation might
account for the reputed different properties of bhang, ganja and charas. In concluding
this section of my remarks, therefore, I would only add, by way of recapitulation, that if the
narcotic of Indian hemp (as currently believed) be purely and simply a glandular secre-
tion, it differs as widely from opium botanically as it does chemically. It must in that
case be a substance unconnected with the metabolism of the growing plant, and its reputed
formation in association with imperfect fecundity might be characterised as very possibly
a pure hallucination of ignorant cultivators.
3. Accepting the main contention here advanced that, as in the case of all other
Indian crops, so with Cannabis sativa, there are cultivated races, we obtain at once a
solution of the remarkable fact of one and the same plant botanically yielding in one part
of India one product, in another a widely different article. We are enabled also to under-
stand why it should alike luxuriate on the tropical plains and on the Alpine slopes.
But this view of the case urges, as of primary importance, that early attention be given
to the systematic study of the various forms, so that we may be saved from the error of
arousing false expectations or of doing injury to one cultivator because, perchance, of the
pernicious nature of the product of another's labours. When Dr. Stocks wrote in 1848
that "the plant grows well in Sind, and if it ever should be found advantageous (politi-
cally or financially) to grow hemp for its fibre, then Sind would be a very proper climate,"
he was reasoning very possibly from insufficient data. Because Cannabis sativa (in one of
its charas-yielding states), flourishes in Sind, it by no means follows that accordingly the
fibre-yielding plant may be substituted. On the contrary, we now know that by far the
major portion of the narcotic-yielding races of the plant form no marketable fibre in
their stems, and further that it is but rarely the case that both series of races (narcotic
and fibre) can be grown in the same locality. So far as works published in Europe are
concerned, it may in all fairness be said that the error has been very frequently made of
regarding the Garhwal and Kumaon regions of fibre production as the total areas
Britannica), or on the other hand of mistaking the extensive areas of narcotic production
as possible regions of the supply of a fibre which is sometimes spoken of as at present
being allowed to run to waste. Errors of this nature would, as I take it, be quite as serious,
if not more so, than the omission to demarcate the tracts of country over which each
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