136
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
10 or 12 years old, and that "from his youth he was wild." He used to smoke ganja and
go about begging, was turned out of Hamadpur for being a bad character; "he was a ter-
rible smoker of ganja."
Another religious mendicant or gosain, by name Harigir, also testified to the fact that
Itwargir was a habitual ganja-smoker and that his moral character was bad, &c., &c.
In this case there are no details of the family history to help us, and we are driven
to frame an hypothesis as to the supposed sequence of events which led up to the insanity.
We have not improbably an instance of wild, dissipated, and misspent youth, coupled with
a highly excitable temperament, and an ill-balanced mind, rendered more so by religious
excitement, and the life of a gosain. Assuming the probable truth of this history, and
the existence of this excitable temperament, it is not difficult to further conjecture that
the free and habitual use of ganja completed the mental unrest, and was sufficient to over-
throw the scanty remains of reason, and set up a condition of melancholia with excitement
(the active melancholia of Dr. Savage). Although in the absence of any particulars about
his family history I am not prepared to state positively that the insanity in this case is
clearly traceable to ganja-smoking and nothing else, neverthless I think that ganja mate-
rially aided, if it did not actually set up, the mental disease.
Subsequent to my return he became daily quieter and showed signs of mental improve-
ment, and on the 20th April 1894 was sufficiently recovered to be released by order
of the official visitors of the Asylum.
If he returns to his ganja-smoking propensities it is not unlikely that we shall have
him back in the Asylum before long.
4. Akbar Khan.—From the statement which accompanied him on admission to the
Lunatic Asylum, it would appear that he has been a wandering lunatic for six or seven
months. The supposed cause is "ganja-smoking, &c." His Asylum history shows that
he was noisy, abusive, and incoherent, alos at times destructive.
He himself ascribed his insanity to an illness for which he was blistered behind the
ear. Says he took ganja, also "daru."
Told me that he had used ganja and majum and also alcohol, brandy, &c.
He was very incoherent and could not be kept to the point. He is always abusive
and uses indecent language. Is quarrelsome and at times violent and given to assaulting
the others.
The magisterial special enquiry gives the evidence of two of Akbar Khan's acquaint-
ances, who testify that he was a confirmed ganja-smoker and spent all his money in intoxi-
cants, but both say that he also used to drink "tari" pretty considerably. One witness
states positively that the ganja caused his insanity, and the other states that his madness
was subsequent to an attack of "fever" (acute mania?).
In this case the man is a confirmed lunatic, but whether the insanity in the first
instance was induced by excess either of ganja or alcohol I think it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to positively determine.
Little is known of his family history, and although one of his acquaintances says that
none of Akbar Khan's relatives were insane, I should like more convincing evidence of
this before I could altogether exclude heredity as a factor in the causation of his insanity.
5. Rudraya.—His papers say that he was a wandering lunatic and was found sitting
by the police on the banks of the Andhari River, was very violent, and required three
men to restrain him, &c. Was violent whilst in Jail, and then lapsed into silence.
Subsequent to his admission to the Asylum he was at first depressed, and then
very violent with impulses to strike every other person near him, and then he became
depressed.