( 46 )
One of the names applied to the plant in India, matcunári, or enemy of
bugs, ' would seem to indicate that it has been supposed to act as an insecticide,
or at least an insectifuge. This is in a way parallel to the northern usage
of planting a row of hemp plants as a protection round. gardens.
The root has had medicinal virtues ascribed to it in Europe, and also in
the east ; there can be no doubt that they are without foundation.
We find, then, that the main interest of the plant lies in its narcotic
principle, and that the early references to this are confined entirely to eastern
literature. Besides what may be called. its every-day use, it has been
variously employed—by the dissipated as an intoxicant, and then sometimes
as a sedative, sometimes as an exhilarating intoxicant ; by the depraved as an
aphrodisiac ; by the criminal, both subjectively as a substance to support
courage while committing a crime, and objectively as a substance either
to stupefy the victim till the crime was committed, or as a poison.
Its use as a stimulant is of long standing in India; this is shown by the great
number of Sanskrit epithets for the plant, indicating both subjectively and objec-
tively the effects it produces. Thus to the partaker it is ánandá, 'the joyous,' to the
on-looker gánjákini,' the noisy,' with an added significance of disrepute, when used
as a mere intoxicant ; when used to excite it is siddhi,' the success-giver.' But this
restricted use of the word siddhi no longer prevails, and siddhi is the name that
in Bengal takes the place of the more usual bhang as indicating the leaves of
the hemp, for whatever purpose used.
Among the earliest extra-Indian account of its employments on a large
scale is that of the sect of Ismailians, who made use of the sedative action
of the drug and the power of concentrating the attention that it at the same
time confers, in contemplating and appreciating the principles instilled by their
teachers—a use familiar to us in India among the fakirs and jogis of to-day.
In the hands of one of their chiefs, the notorious Hásan Sabáh, the exciting
action which may be induced to accompany its use was employed in urging his
followers, the assassins, whose name has been already discussed, to the com-
mission of reckless acts of violence.
In the works of Taki-ed-din Ahmad it is narrated that in A.D. 1286
the Egyptian Sultan, Bibars al Bhondokdhary, found it necessary to prohibit
the use of haschisch entirely, though by twenty years later its consumption
had become as Common as before. This indicates that, if the practice of taking
hemp as an intoxicant was long in reaching Egypt, it soon took firm hold of the
people. The Sultan's action was induced by a desire to suppress the licenti-
ousness that accompanied its use, and it would seem that at all times in Egypt
the substance has been taken from the lowest and most bestial motives, and
never as a simple intoxicant or as a food-accessory. De Sacy (1809), Rougier
(1810), and later still Lane and Charnac (1846), all speak of its use in this way
and in much the same terms ; and the practice was almost as rampant at the
time of the recent English occupation of Egypt as ever.
Garcia cl'Orta (1563) mentions the Indian use of the drug very fully, and
especially notes the employment of it as an aphrodisiac. Hooke (1689) speaks of
the simple intoxicant action, and says the effects are to render the subject
mightily refreshed and exceedingly hungry.' Rheede (1690) speaks of the
powdered leaves as being smoked on the Malabar Coast, and as producing intoxi-
cation; he ascribes the property particularly to the male, which almost indicates
some error of observation on his part, the male being comparatively inert ; he
speaks, too, of its local application as relieving pain, and mentions other medi-
cinal uses. Rumphius (1750) gives quite the best early account of its uses and
effects, and is the first observer clearly to discern the extraordinary part played
by temperament in influencing the action of this drug. Hove (1789) speaks
only of its effect as an intoxicant. The whole of these writers, however, have
noticed only the stong effects of large doses of the drug ; none of them have
anything to say of its general use. Though in camps and in the bazars of
large towns where a dissipated soldiery or a degraded populace congregate,
such effects must have always been more or less visible; there is no reason to
doubt that then, as now, for every habitual partaker of hemp in intoxicating
doses,—for every abuser of hemp in fact—there were scores of peaceable men
who found it—as their successors still find it—a stimulant in the legitimate sense,
and a comfort.
The depraved use of hemp appears to be as old in India as the other
uses; the Sanskrit name harshini, the 'delight giver,' indicates particularly