Jacob Bell
New Member
By W. LEY, Esq.
The hemp plant, Cannabis Sativa, is well known; it is supposed to be a native of Persia; it grows wild on the mountains of Asia, but is not confined to them. When cultivated for its fibre it is sown so closely that it spends itself in long shoots. When a single plant is grown it shoots out its branches close to the soil luxuriantly, and attains a height of four, five, or six feet. The leaf resembles that of the common nettle. It exhales a powerful narcotic odor, and the branches are glutinous to the touch, with a resinous secretion. For medicinal purposes the garden hemp is used. In the East the plants are directed to be set at least nine
feet apart, to allow them the full benefit of heat, light, and air. When the seed is formed, the plant is in the greatest perfection. The resinous exudation of the leaves is then collected and sold as churrus; or the shoots, from which the resin has not been collected, are cut and dried, and sold as gunjah.
In England it has been used medicinally, but its use is quite forgotten. In an old act of Henry the Eighth, which is still in force, hemp is forbidden to be soaked in ponds or running streams where cattle drink. The seeds are mentioned by old medical writers. By modem writers it is treated as having no effect; yet botanists speak of it as a violent poison, and of the water, in which it has been soaked, producing its effects almost as soon as drank. Hero¬dotus, speaking of the customs of the Scythians, says they have among them a species of hemp, resembling flax, except that it is both larger and thicker; of this the Thracians make themselves garments. The Scy¬thians take the seed of this hemp and throw it upon red hot stones; immediately a perfumed vapor ascends stronger than from any Grecian stove. This is to them in the place of a bath, and it excites from them cries of exultation. Hemp seeds are also mentioned by Galen as promoters of hilarity and enjoyment. These properties are forgotten among us, if they really exist; yet throughout the East the resin of the plant maintains a very high credit. It is of the resin that this paper treats.
It is noticed by many Arabian, Persian, and San¬scrit writers, and is in popular use as an intoxicating agent from the furthermost confines of India to Algiers. When the dry leaves are mixed with tobacco, and smoked, " intoxication ensues almost instantly, with heaviness, laziness, and agreeable reveries; but the person can be readily roused, and is able to discharge routine occupations." If the resin be swallowed, almost invariably the in¬ebriation is of the most cheerful kind, causing the person to sing and dance, to eat food with great relish, and to seek aphrodisiac enjoyment. The intoxication lasts about three hours, when sleep supervenes. No nausea or sickness of the stomach succeeds, nor are the bowels at all affected; next day there is slight giddiness and much vascularity of the eyes, but no other symptom worth recording." These effects are produced on carnivorous animals generally; but on graminivorous they are less marked. In the colder climate of this country the effects are much modified. I fear, too, that a vegetable produc¬tion sent to this country from Calcutta, and not im¬mediately used, has been deteriorated by age. The stimulating effect has been very much less marked'; the few persons who have felt the dreamy exhilaration have made no outward manifestation of it. The dose to produce stupor must be much larger. The ap¬pearance of catalepsy, which was occasionally pro¬duced in India, has not been produced here. The subsequent effects are depression of spirits and re¬laxation of the muscles in a remarkable degree; yet the litheness attending that relaxation, the free per¬spiration on the skin, and the increase of appetite, have made some old rheumatic persons speak of it as of the elasticity of youth. Most frequently the de-pressing effects cause a great disinclination in the patient to continue its use. The remedy was introduced to our notice by Dr. O'Shaughnessy in a paper originally published at Calcutta, but which has been this month reprinted in the Provincial Medical Jour¬nal. The results which followed his investigations are most practical and beneficial. How perfectly they will be confirmed by experience in this aountry is yet to be proved. I have been requested to make this communication to the Royal Medico-Botanical Society, because I have witnessed some of its effects, and can myself testify that this agent is one of unusual value. In this my experience differs from that of a gentleman who has published an account of his want of success in the use of this agent. Yet he has had much greater opportunity, and has had more varied articles in the mode and time of their preparation than I have had. His high character makes it the more necessary that I should state as precisely as possible what effects I have seen. There can be no doubt that some of these effects can be produced more conveniently and more effectually by other remedies. Its peculiarities will be best shown by comparison with opium, that being the only remedy of the class that is used to produce its various effects. Opium is stimulating to intoxi¬cation; has great reputation in the East as an aphro¬disiac; it raises the pulse, and quickens respiration, increases the heat of the body, and diminishes secre¬tion; it allays irritability and pain of the whole or any part of the body, but not invariably. Secondly, it causes general depression, sleep, thirst, headache, dryness of skin, constipation, loss of appetite, sickness, tremors, and other symptoms of debility.
The hemp resin has no taste, and little smell. In the East it is stimulating to intoxication, and to aphrodisia; it raises the pulse, excites warmth, makes the breathing more slow, does not check secretion; it allays irritation and pain, but less generally than opium; it causes general depression, sleep, relaxation of the muscles in a remarkable degree. The patient lies in one position, indisposed to move; the face loses its expression, the jaw falls, there is difficulty of breathing; it is as though the air was drawn through cotton, it feels dry; the expectoration and perspiration arc increased; the bowels are not affected except there may be an unpleasant feeling of heat-a forcing of the sphincter ani, as if it could not retain the contents of the rectum ; yet with evacuation-which is in such case particularly easy-or no evacuation, the forcing con¬tinues. These symptoms will continue while the muscular relaxation last. Sleep, or rather repose, would continue during the whole time unless the avocations of the day or mental activity forbid it; no unpleasant feelings succeed, and the appetite im¬proves.
Opium is useful to increase the heat of the surfaces, to restrain over-secretion, to diminish pain and irri¬tation; but it is in spasmodic and convulsive diseases that opium is most evidently useful. In tetanus it has occasionally succeeded when given in very large doses. In hydrophobia 180 grains have been given in the space of twelve hours without apparent effect.
The amount of benefit we may derive from the hemp, when experience has more fully proved its efficacy, is yet to be seen. In cholera it has allayed sickness, cramp, and purging, it produced rapidly an improved condition of skin in warmth and perspi¬ration; it raised the pulse. In rheumatism it relieved the pain and swelling more quickly and satisfactorily than I have seen by any other medicine. In spas¬modic and convulsive diseases hemp is most eminently useful. In tetanus it has been the means of cure in the majority of cases, both in men and in horses. It has relieved hydrophobia of much of its honor, but did not avert the fatal termination. In common with opium it is useful in chorea, spasmodic asthma, deli¬rium tremens ; and I believe that whenever opium is useful hemp also will show that it has some power. Time must draw a more perfect comparison.
In dangerous doses the effects of opium are-in-creasing stupor, loss of motion, and of sensibility, re-spiration slow, muscles relaxed, pupils contracted. The progress of the poison is marked by the in-creasing relaxation of the muscles, and the falling of the features from that cause, until the depression of death arrests progress. In dangerous doses the effects of hemp are not known, because the largest doses have not proved dangerous; in this is its great supe¬riority over opium. When opium begins to kill, hemp exerts a beneficial influence. The stupor, loss of motion and sensibility, slow respiration, relaxed mus¬cle, fallen feature, when produced by hemp are not the prognostications of death; by their agency we promote cure. The falling jaw and relaxed features, so fatal as the effect of opium, may be in hemp the result of a moderate dose; it is by sustaining these relaxing doses that an absorbent effect is attained. By this influence we relieve muscular spasm with greater mildness and more certainty; under it we produce absorption from bursae, from the sheaths of tendons, and from the joints. It is no slight thing to say of a new remedy that it will in any degree bear comparison with opium. It is a triumph in thera¬peutics to establish, as I do not doubt we shall be able, that this new remedy will effect by moderate doses, and safely, what our heretofore strongest power could only attempt with danger-that, going further, this acquisition will prove itself a direct antidote-the first of its class-to strychnine, one of the most violent poisons nature affords. This language may be strong; but, being founded on evidence, is not too strong, until it is contradicted by further investigation. To promote that, Dr. O'Shaughnessy has brought with him to this country a considerable quantity of the dried plant. He has placed it in the hands of Mr. Squire, to be by him prepared; it will there be within the reach of all, and, allowance being made for the age and voyage, his name is an assurance that the preparation he makes will be as good as any pharma¬ceutist in this country could supply. The question of the effects of the plant grown in this country is still to be tried; the experiments hitherto made are incon¬clusive. In any experiment that may be made it must be borne in mind that the water in which hemp is steeped has the credit of being a poison in this country, and in India also.
The introduction of the plant into use as an intoxi-cating agent, in the East, would appear to contradict this opinion. The fresh leaves were eaten; and sub-sequently a beverage having the emerald green color of the leaf was a favorite mode of imbibing its virtues. The tale is thus told-" Haider, the chief of ascetics and self-chasteners, lived in rigid privation on a moun-tain between Nishabor and Ramah, where he esta-
blished a monastery of fakirs. Ten years he had spent in this retreat without leaving it for a moment, till one burning summer's day, when he departed alone to the fields. On his return an air of joy and gaiety was imprinted on his countenance; he received the visits of his brethren, and encouraged their conversation. On being questioned, he stated that, struck by the aspect of a plant which danced in the heat as if with joy, while all the rest of the vegetable creation was torpid, he had gathered and eaten of its leaves. He led his companions to the spot; all ate and all were similarly excited." The exaltation was so great that the beholders attributed it to supernatural inspiration. We cannot read this account without recurring with a smile to the famous oracle at Delphi.
This class of effects cannot be passed over, being less marked here than in the East; the treating of them is a matter of greater difficulty; yet their absence even would require notice. The drug is there known as "the laughter moving," " the exciter of mirth," " the strengthener," " the promoter of success," "the causer of a reeling gait," "the exciter of sexual desire." There are few men in our country who are unacquainted with an agent as effectual, and as much admired by the sons of song. The praises bestowed on Haidee's emerald cup and on the moun¬tain dew of our Emerald Isle are too identical to be unobserved. They are both used in medicine, and both are known to their votaries as a most approved cordial. There is a question fairly raised-Was not this the nepenthe of which Homer sung? Mr. Lane supports this view by observing that Helen evi¬dently brought the nepenthe from Egypt, and hemp, under the name of benj, is there still reputed to possess all the wonderful qualities Homer attributes to it. There can be few of these popular fictions in which there is no substratum of truth. With this feeling the curious testimony of the effects of the hemp vapor, and the litheness of limb produced by the internal use of the remedy, become closely allied to the fable of Medea boiling old men young. There is yet another historical allusion which the interest attached to everything emanating from our own great poet and dramatist makes it impossible to pass. In the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments " frequent men¬tion is made of the drug, the subject of this commu¬nication, under the name of benj. In one tale, the heroine, Koot-el-Kuloob, is represented to be thrown into a profound sleep by the medicine given her, and buried alive ; on being dug up again, the fresh air revives her; she is still under the influence of the dose, but the only manifest effects of it are her strong appetite for love and food. This tale was published in Egypt about the year 1450 or 1500. The story of Romeo and Juliet was published at Venice in 1549, as an occurrence of real life at Verona. We have the authority of Lord Byron for the faith still placed in the truth of this story by the inhabitants of that part of Italy. He visited the tomb of the lovers, and mentions the ruins of the castle of the Montecchi, and a chapel once belonging to the Capelli ; he also adds to the tale the information that Romeo is sup-posed by tradition to be of Vicenza. These are curious points rather than satisfactory evidence that the account of the sleeping draught was possible. It is on the possibility of any draught of such potency
being without danger to life that the probability of the story principally depends. The possibility, then, is the question. That Dale, one of our earliest writers on materia medica, should speak of bangue thus-"Infatuat ut opium, somnum consiliat, multe autem aflirmant ad libidinem ciendum, et venerem stimu¬landum, magna esse efficacies; verum enimveronostra sententih pcrnisiosa est planta, et none sine periculo sumenda." This is testimony that the popular drug of Egypt was well known in England, and therefore by necessity to the literati of Venice at an earlier period. It would as yet be very bold to say that the benj has the efficacy described. The coincidence is curious, and I can fearlessly say that, of all known soporifics, I should push this to an extremity with most confidence. Having given it for the relief of tetanic spasm, my patient felt that she had taken too much ; she was overpowered ; the spasms were re¬lieved, and she fell into a stupor which lasted ten hours. The face was relaxed, the eye closed, the jaw fallen, the breathing scarcely perceptible. She showed no sensibility; there was no motion; she was in the calmest sleep ; her skin was warm, and the pulse maintained its strength. These assured me that it was not the sleep of death. She awoke without any disagreeable feeling from the powerful dose, but with relief beyond expression. Had this influence been produced in a climate where coldness is not an accom¬paniment of death, and where the funeral takes place before the body has time to cool, a premature burial might have been in prospect. Dr. O'Shaughnessy will tell you that a Persian physician of high cha¬racter, seeing him doubtful and alarmed at the stupor produced by one grain, bade him give thirty without fear, adding, " You will think him dead, but it is of no consequence; he will recover again"-evidently likening the effect to that of spirit rather than of opium. Mr. O'Brien, who has been familiar with the remedy at Calcutta, has also seen a person whom he believed dead, but recovered after twelve hours' stupor, without any unpleasant effects remaining. Admiration of the poet has made me strenuous, per¬haps beyond prudence; but the truth, and strong insight into nature which he always displays, make the defence of what has been deemed impossible a flattering subject, and as such I have not feared to be free with my pen.*
I have brought forward this subject in the presence of Dr. O'Shaughnessy (to whom we are indebted for the introduction of this medicine), because his en¬gagements prevent his doing so, and because the loss of his assistance is what we should all deplore. He has seen more of its effects than I, and the watchful eye of the father detects points of interest in the child, which warm his eloquence, and will make him protect the offspring of his energy and the evidence of his diligent research.
* Although experiments on dogs are not conclusive as to the effects of remedies on the human subject, they afford evidence that is not to be disregarded. On the human adult, one-sixth of a grain of the fresh extract of hemp prepared at Calcutta produced decided effects. Dr. O'Shaughnessy gave to a Fnoderate sized dog half an ounce of the same preparation; the result was that he slept, in a state of stupor, with the limbs stiff, as from catalepsy, for two days. It then recovered and ate voraciously.
Source: Observations on the Cannabis Indica, or Indian Hemp
The hemp plant, Cannabis Sativa, is well known; it is supposed to be a native of Persia; it grows wild on the mountains of Asia, but is not confined to them. When cultivated for its fibre it is sown so closely that it spends itself in long shoots. When a single plant is grown it shoots out its branches close to the soil luxuriantly, and attains a height of four, five, or six feet. The leaf resembles that of the common nettle. It exhales a powerful narcotic odor, and the branches are glutinous to the touch, with a resinous secretion. For medicinal purposes the garden hemp is used. In the East the plants are directed to be set at least nine
feet apart, to allow them the full benefit of heat, light, and air. When the seed is formed, the plant is in the greatest perfection. The resinous exudation of the leaves is then collected and sold as churrus; or the shoots, from which the resin has not been collected, are cut and dried, and sold as gunjah.
In England it has been used medicinally, but its use is quite forgotten. In an old act of Henry the Eighth, which is still in force, hemp is forbidden to be soaked in ponds or running streams where cattle drink. The seeds are mentioned by old medical writers. By modem writers it is treated as having no effect; yet botanists speak of it as a violent poison, and of the water, in which it has been soaked, producing its effects almost as soon as drank. Hero¬dotus, speaking of the customs of the Scythians, says they have among them a species of hemp, resembling flax, except that it is both larger and thicker; of this the Thracians make themselves garments. The Scy¬thians take the seed of this hemp and throw it upon red hot stones; immediately a perfumed vapor ascends stronger than from any Grecian stove. This is to them in the place of a bath, and it excites from them cries of exultation. Hemp seeds are also mentioned by Galen as promoters of hilarity and enjoyment. These properties are forgotten among us, if they really exist; yet throughout the East the resin of the plant maintains a very high credit. It is of the resin that this paper treats.
It is noticed by many Arabian, Persian, and San¬scrit writers, and is in popular use as an intoxicating agent from the furthermost confines of India to Algiers. When the dry leaves are mixed with tobacco, and smoked, " intoxication ensues almost instantly, with heaviness, laziness, and agreeable reveries; but the person can be readily roused, and is able to discharge routine occupations." If the resin be swallowed, almost invariably the in¬ebriation is of the most cheerful kind, causing the person to sing and dance, to eat food with great relish, and to seek aphrodisiac enjoyment. The intoxication lasts about three hours, when sleep supervenes. No nausea or sickness of the stomach succeeds, nor are the bowels at all affected; next day there is slight giddiness and much vascularity of the eyes, but no other symptom worth recording." These effects are produced on carnivorous animals generally; but on graminivorous they are less marked. In the colder climate of this country the effects are much modified. I fear, too, that a vegetable produc¬tion sent to this country from Calcutta, and not im¬mediately used, has been deteriorated by age. The stimulating effect has been very much less marked'; the few persons who have felt the dreamy exhilaration have made no outward manifestation of it. The dose to produce stupor must be much larger. The ap¬pearance of catalepsy, which was occasionally pro¬duced in India, has not been produced here. The subsequent effects are depression of spirits and re¬laxation of the muscles in a remarkable degree; yet the litheness attending that relaxation, the free per¬spiration on the skin, and the increase of appetite, have made some old rheumatic persons speak of it as of the elasticity of youth. Most frequently the de-pressing effects cause a great disinclination in the patient to continue its use. The remedy was introduced to our notice by Dr. O'Shaughnessy in a paper originally published at Calcutta, but which has been this month reprinted in the Provincial Medical Jour¬nal. The results which followed his investigations are most practical and beneficial. How perfectly they will be confirmed by experience in this aountry is yet to be proved. I have been requested to make this communication to the Royal Medico-Botanical Society, because I have witnessed some of its effects, and can myself testify that this agent is one of unusual value. In this my experience differs from that of a gentleman who has published an account of his want of success in the use of this agent. Yet he has had much greater opportunity, and has had more varied articles in the mode and time of their preparation than I have had. His high character makes it the more necessary that I should state as precisely as possible what effects I have seen. There can be no doubt that some of these effects can be produced more conveniently and more effectually by other remedies. Its peculiarities will be best shown by comparison with opium, that being the only remedy of the class that is used to produce its various effects. Opium is stimulating to intoxi¬cation; has great reputation in the East as an aphro¬disiac; it raises the pulse, and quickens respiration, increases the heat of the body, and diminishes secre¬tion; it allays irritability and pain of the whole or any part of the body, but not invariably. Secondly, it causes general depression, sleep, thirst, headache, dryness of skin, constipation, loss of appetite, sickness, tremors, and other symptoms of debility.
The hemp resin has no taste, and little smell. In the East it is stimulating to intoxication, and to aphrodisia; it raises the pulse, excites warmth, makes the breathing more slow, does not check secretion; it allays irritation and pain, but less generally than opium; it causes general depression, sleep, relaxation of the muscles in a remarkable degree. The patient lies in one position, indisposed to move; the face loses its expression, the jaw falls, there is difficulty of breathing; it is as though the air was drawn through cotton, it feels dry; the expectoration and perspiration arc increased; the bowels are not affected except there may be an unpleasant feeling of heat-a forcing of the sphincter ani, as if it could not retain the contents of the rectum ; yet with evacuation-which is in such case particularly easy-or no evacuation, the forcing con¬tinues. These symptoms will continue while the muscular relaxation last. Sleep, or rather repose, would continue during the whole time unless the avocations of the day or mental activity forbid it; no unpleasant feelings succeed, and the appetite im¬proves.
Opium is useful to increase the heat of the surfaces, to restrain over-secretion, to diminish pain and irri¬tation; but it is in spasmodic and convulsive diseases that opium is most evidently useful. In tetanus it has occasionally succeeded when given in very large doses. In hydrophobia 180 grains have been given in the space of twelve hours without apparent effect.
The amount of benefit we may derive from the hemp, when experience has more fully proved its efficacy, is yet to be seen. In cholera it has allayed sickness, cramp, and purging, it produced rapidly an improved condition of skin in warmth and perspi¬ration; it raised the pulse. In rheumatism it relieved the pain and swelling more quickly and satisfactorily than I have seen by any other medicine. In spas¬modic and convulsive diseases hemp is most eminently useful. In tetanus it has been the means of cure in the majority of cases, both in men and in horses. It has relieved hydrophobia of much of its honor, but did not avert the fatal termination. In common with opium it is useful in chorea, spasmodic asthma, deli¬rium tremens ; and I believe that whenever opium is useful hemp also will show that it has some power. Time must draw a more perfect comparison.
In dangerous doses the effects of opium are-in-creasing stupor, loss of motion, and of sensibility, re-spiration slow, muscles relaxed, pupils contracted. The progress of the poison is marked by the in-creasing relaxation of the muscles, and the falling of the features from that cause, until the depression of death arrests progress. In dangerous doses the effects of hemp are not known, because the largest doses have not proved dangerous; in this is its great supe¬riority over opium. When opium begins to kill, hemp exerts a beneficial influence. The stupor, loss of motion and sensibility, slow respiration, relaxed mus¬cle, fallen feature, when produced by hemp are not the prognostications of death; by their agency we promote cure. The falling jaw and relaxed features, so fatal as the effect of opium, may be in hemp the result of a moderate dose; it is by sustaining these relaxing doses that an absorbent effect is attained. By this influence we relieve muscular spasm with greater mildness and more certainty; under it we produce absorption from bursae, from the sheaths of tendons, and from the joints. It is no slight thing to say of a new remedy that it will in any degree bear comparison with opium. It is a triumph in thera¬peutics to establish, as I do not doubt we shall be able, that this new remedy will effect by moderate doses, and safely, what our heretofore strongest power could only attempt with danger-that, going further, this acquisition will prove itself a direct antidote-the first of its class-to strychnine, one of the most violent poisons nature affords. This language may be strong; but, being founded on evidence, is not too strong, until it is contradicted by further investigation. To promote that, Dr. O'Shaughnessy has brought with him to this country a considerable quantity of the dried plant. He has placed it in the hands of Mr. Squire, to be by him prepared; it will there be within the reach of all, and, allowance being made for the age and voyage, his name is an assurance that the preparation he makes will be as good as any pharma¬ceutist in this country could supply. The question of the effects of the plant grown in this country is still to be tried; the experiments hitherto made are incon¬clusive. In any experiment that may be made it must be borne in mind that the water in which hemp is steeped has the credit of being a poison in this country, and in India also.
The introduction of the plant into use as an intoxi-cating agent, in the East, would appear to contradict this opinion. The fresh leaves were eaten; and sub-sequently a beverage having the emerald green color of the leaf was a favorite mode of imbibing its virtues. The tale is thus told-" Haider, the chief of ascetics and self-chasteners, lived in rigid privation on a moun-tain between Nishabor and Ramah, where he esta-
blished a monastery of fakirs. Ten years he had spent in this retreat without leaving it for a moment, till one burning summer's day, when he departed alone to the fields. On his return an air of joy and gaiety was imprinted on his countenance; he received the visits of his brethren, and encouraged their conversation. On being questioned, he stated that, struck by the aspect of a plant which danced in the heat as if with joy, while all the rest of the vegetable creation was torpid, he had gathered and eaten of its leaves. He led his companions to the spot; all ate and all were similarly excited." The exaltation was so great that the beholders attributed it to supernatural inspiration. We cannot read this account without recurring with a smile to the famous oracle at Delphi.
This class of effects cannot be passed over, being less marked here than in the East; the treating of them is a matter of greater difficulty; yet their absence even would require notice. The drug is there known as "the laughter moving," " the exciter of mirth," " the strengthener," " the promoter of success," "the causer of a reeling gait," "the exciter of sexual desire." There are few men in our country who are unacquainted with an agent as effectual, and as much admired by the sons of song. The praises bestowed on Haidee's emerald cup and on the moun¬tain dew of our Emerald Isle are too identical to be unobserved. They are both used in medicine, and both are known to their votaries as a most approved cordial. There is a question fairly raised-Was not this the nepenthe of which Homer sung? Mr. Lane supports this view by observing that Helen evi¬dently brought the nepenthe from Egypt, and hemp, under the name of benj, is there still reputed to possess all the wonderful qualities Homer attributes to it. There can be few of these popular fictions in which there is no substratum of truth. With this feeling the curious testimony of the effects of the hemp vapor, and the litheness of limb produced by the internal use of the remedy, become closely allied to the fable of Medea boiling old men young. There is yet another historical allusion which the interest attached to everything emanating from our own great poet and dramatist makes it impossible to pass. In the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments " frequent men¬tion is made of the drug, the subject of this commu¬nication, under the name of benj. In one tale, the heroine, Koot-el-Kuloob, is represented to be thrown into a profound sleep by the medicine given her, and buried alive ; on being dug up again, the fresh air revives her; she is still under the influence of the dose, but the only manifest effects of it are her strong appetite for love and food. This tale was published in Egypt about the year 1450 or 1500. The story of Romeo and Juliet was published at Venice in 1549, as an occurrence of real life at Verona. We have the authority of Lord Byron for the faith still placed in the truth of this story by the inhabitants of that part of Italy. He visited the tomb of the lovers, and mentions the ruins of the castle of the Montecchi, and a chapel once belonging to the Capelli ; he also adds to the tale the information that Romeo is sup-posed by tradition to be of Vicenza. These are curious points rather than satisfactory evidence that the account of the sleeping draught was possible. It is on the possibility of any draught of such potency
being without danger to life that the probability of the story principally depends. The possibility, then, is the question. That Dale, one of our earliest writers on materia medica, should speak of bangue thus-"Infatuat ut opium, somnum consiliat, multe autem aflirmant ad libidinem ciendum, et venerem stimu¬landum, magna esse efficacies; verum enimveronostra sententih pcrnisiosa est planta, et none sine periculo sumenda." This is testimony that the popular drug of Egypt was well known in England, and therefore by necessity to the literati of Venice at an earlier period. It would as yet be very bold to say that the benj has the efficacy described. The coincidence is curious, and I can fearlessly say that, of all known soporifics, I should push this to an extremity with most confidence. Having given it for the relief of tetanic spasm, my patient felt that she had taken too much ; she was overpowered ; the spasms were re¬lieved, and she fell into a stupor which lasted ten hours. The face was relaxed, the eye closed, the jaw fallen, the breathing scarcely perceptible. She showed no sensibility; there was no motion; she was in the calmest sleep ; her skin was warm, and the pulse maintained its strength. These assured me that it was not the sleep of death. She awoke without any disagreeable feeling from the powerful dose, but with relief beyond expression. Had this influence been produced in a climate where coldness is not an accom¬paniment of death, and where the funeral takes place before the body has time to cool, a premature burial might have been in prospect. Dr. O'Shaughnessy will tell you that a Persian physician of high cha¬racter, seeing him doubtful and alarmed at the stupor produced by one grain, bade him give thirty without fear, adding, " You will think him dead, but it is of no consequence; he will recover again"-evidently likening the effect to that of spirit rather than of opium. Mr. O'Brien, who has been familiar with the remedy at Calcutta, has also seen a person whom he believed dead, but recovered after twelve hours' stupor, without any unpleasant effects remaining. Admiration of the poet has made me strenuous, per¬haps beyond prudence; but the truth, and strong insight into nature which he always displays, make the defence of what has been deemed impossible a flattering subject, and as such I have not feared to be free with my pen.*
I have brought forward this subject in the presence of Dr. O'Shaughnessy (to whom we are indebted for the introduction of this medicine), because his en¬gagements prevent his doing so, and because the loss of his assistance is what we should all deplore. He has seen more of its effects than I, and the watchful eye of the father detects points of interest in the child, which warm his eloquence, and will make him protect the offspring of his energy and the evidence of his diligent research.
* Although experiments on dogs are not conclusive as to the effects of remedies on the human subject, they afford evidence that is not to be disregarded. On the human adult, one-sixth of a grain of the fresh extract of hemp prepared at Calcutta produced decided effects. Dr. O'Shaughnessy gave to a Fnoderate sized dog half an ounce of the same preparation; the result was that he slept, in a state of stupor, with the limbs stiff, as from catalepsy, for two days. It then recovered and ate voraciously.
Source: Observations on the Cannabis Indica, or Indian Hemp
