194
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
considerable period not long before the close of the experiment the animal had been subject to
an attack of dysentery, which would alone have been sufficient to occasion considerable loss of
weight.
On laying the body open the phenomenon which at once attracted attention as unlike any
ordinarily present in caged monkeys, was the great amount of fat accumulated in the
omentum, the mesentery and the visceral and parietal pericardium. This was specially note-
worthy in connection with the markedly diminished ingestion of food which had characterised
the subject of the experiment during the greater part of its course, and with the coincident
considerable reduction in body-weight which had occurred.
The body generally appeared to be fairly well-nourished and a considerable amount of
subcutaneous fat was present.
The lungs were quite exceptionally healthy for a caged monkey; neither of them being in
the least degree adherent to the thoracic walls, the left one being apparently perfectly
healthy, and the right merely showing a few patches of deep congestion towards the
base.
Under the influence of the osmic acid contained in the fixing solution in which specimens
of it were immersed, the muscular tissue of the heart showed unequivocal signs of the
presence of a certain amount of interstitial fat. Whether, however, these were due to true
fatty degeneration of the muscular elements proper, or, as is more probably the case, to mere
fatty accumulation in the connective tissue, must remain an open question until the detailed
histological examination of the tissues has been carried out.
The liver, spleen and pancreas appeared to be perfectly normal, save that, as in the
case of the cardiac muscle, a slight excess of interstitial fat made its appearance under the
influence of osmic acid.
The kidneys, the stomach, the large and small intestines and the cerebro-spinal nervous
centres were all apparently perfectly healthy.
The only peculiar features in the body, then, which could in any way be rationally
regarded as connected with the treatment to which the animal had been exposed, were the
excessive accumulation of fat in the tissues of the omentum, peritoneum, and pericardium,
and the tendency to the establishment of a similar accumulation in the cardiac muscle, the
liver, the pancreas and the spleen.
But the only persistent symptom attending the treatment during life was a considerable
diminution in appetite for food, so that, in so far as the results of a single experiment afford
any ground for inference, it would appear that the most important effect of the habitual
employment of inhalations of the smoke of ganja is to give rise to diminution in the nor-
mal processes of tissue-waste to such a degree that local accumulations of fat are liable to
occur even in spite of the coincident and similarly originating diminution in the ingestion of
food. The diminution in activity of the normal processes of tissue-waste tends, on the
one hand, to give rise to decreased ingestion of food and on the other to local accumulations
of fat in spite of this. But, if the habitual practice of inhalations of the drug really do
produce such effects, it is clear that, in place of being hurtful, it may be positively beneficial
to people who are obliged to undergo exertions without having the means of procuring a diet
fully adapted to make good the amount of tissue-waste normally associated with these. As
has been already pointed out, it is necessary to exercise extreme caution in coming to any
definite conclusions from the experiment, first, because it is an isolated one, and, second,
because the post-mortem examination has not yet been histologically completed, but the
evidence which it has afforded, is, in so far as it goes, rather in favour of the use of the drug
under certain conditions than adverse to it.
EXPERIMENT II.
On the effects of habitual ingestion of charas.
In this experiment two small monkeys (M. cynomolgus) were employed. One of them,
A, weighed 5 lb 7 oz., and the other, B, 4 lb 1 oz.
A standard globule of the drug, representing the amount of his ordinary dose, was
obtained from a habitual charas-eater. It weighed 1.05 grain and at the outset of the ex-
periment one-twentieth part of that amount was daily administered to A, and one-twenty-
fourth part to B, as approximately proportionate doses weight for weight, as compared with
those of the man and his ordinary doses.
The drug was rubbed up with a little milk and the animals readily partook of the
mixture. Doses of the above amount were daily administered for some time, but, as they
failed to produce any appreciable symptoms, the quantity was then gradually increased,
until towards the close of the experiment as much as 3 grains, was given daily to each of
the animals.