HERBA CANNABIS.

Cannabis Indica; Indian Hemp; F. Chanvre Indien; G. Hanfkraut.

Botanical Origin—Cannabis sativa L., Common Hemp, an annual diœcious plant, native of Western and Central Asia, cultivated in temperate as well as in tropical countries.

It grows wild luxuriantly on the banks of the lower Ural and Volga near the Caspian Sea, extending thence to Persia, the Altai range, and Northern and Western China. It is found in Kashmir and on the Himalaya, growing 10 to 12 feet high, and thriving vigorously at an elevation of 6000 to 10,000 feet. It likewise occurs in Tropical Africa, on the eastern and western coasts as well as in the central tracts watered by the Congo and Zambesi, but whether truly indigenous is doubtful. It has been naturalized in Brazil, north of Rio de Janeiro, the seeds having been brought thither by the negroes from Western Africa. The cultivation of hemp is carried on in many parts of continental Europe, but especially in Central and Southern Russia.

The hemp plant grown in India exhibits certain differences as contrasted with that cultivated in Europe, which were noticed by Rumphius in the 17th century, and which (about a.d. 1790), induced Lamarck to claim for the former plant the rank of a distinct species, under the name of Cannabis indica. But the variations observed in the two plants are of so little botanical importance and are so inconstant, that the maintenance of C. indica as distinct from C. sativa has been abandoned by general consent.

In a medicinal point of view, there is a wide dissimilarity between hemp grown in India and that produced in Europe, the former being vastly more potent. Yet even in India there is much variation, for, according to Jameson, the plant grown at altitudes of 6000 to 8000 feet affords the resin known as Charas, which cannot be obtained from that cultivated on the plains.[2023]

History—Hemp has been propagated on account of its textile fibre and oily seeds from a remote period.

The ancient Chinese herbal called Rh-ya, written about the 5th century b.c., notices the fact that the hemp plant is of two kinds, the one producing seeds, the other flowers only.[2024] In Susruta, Charaka and other early works on Hindu medicine, hemp (B’hanga) is mentioned as a remedy. Herodotus states that hemp grows in Scythia both wild and cultivated, and that the Thracians made garments from it which can hardly be distinguished from linen. He also describes how the Scythians expose themselves as in a bath to the vapour of the seeds thrown on hot coals.[2025]

The Greeks and Romans appear to have been unacquainted with the medicinal powers of hemp, unless indeed the care-destroying Νηπενθές should, as Royle has supposed, be referred to this plant. According to Stanislas Julien,[2026] anæsthetic powers were ascribed by the Chinese to preparations of hemp as early as the commencement of the 3rd century.

The employment of hemp both medical and dietetic appears to have spread slowly through India and Persia to the Arabians, amongst whom the plant was used in the early middle ages. The famous heretical sect of Mahomedans, whose murderous deeds struck terror into the hearts of the Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries, derived their name of Hashishin, or, as it is commonly written, assassins, from hashísh the Arabic for hemp,[2027] which in certain of their rites they used as an intoxicant.[2028] In 1286 of our era, the Sultan of Egypt, Bibars al Bondokdary, prohibited the sale of hashish, the monopoly of which had been leased before.[2029]

The use of hemp (bhang) in India was particularly noticed by Garcia de Orta[2030] (1563), and the plant was subsequently figured by Rheede, who described the drug as largely used on the Malabar coast. It would seem about this time to have been imported into Europe, at least occasionally, for Berlu in his Treasury of Drugs, 1690, describes it as coming from Bantam in the East Indies, and “of an infatuating quality and pernicious use.“

It was Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt that was the means of again calling attention to the peculiar properties of hemp, by the accounts of De Sacy (1809) and Rouger (1810). But the introduction of the Indian drug into European medicine is of still more recent date, and is chiefly due to the experiments made in Calcutta by O’Shaughnessy in 1838-39.[2031] Although the astonishing effects produced in India by the administration of preparations of hemp are seldom witnessed in the cooler climate of Britain, the powers of the drug are sufficiently manifest to give it an established place in the pharmacopœia.

Production—Though hemp is grown in many parts of India, yet as a drug it is chiefly produced in a limited area in the districts of Bogra and Rājshāhi, north of Calcutta, where the plant is cultivated for the purpose in a systematic manner. The retail sale, like that of opium and spirits, is restricted by a license, which in 1871-2 produced to the Government of Bengal about £120,000, while upon opium (chiefly consumed in Assam) the amount raised was £310,000.[2032] Bhang is one of the principal commodities imported into India from Turkestan.

Description—The leaves of hemp have long stalks with small stipules at their bases, and are composed of 5 to 7 lanceolate-acuminate leaflets, sharply serrate at the margin. The loose panicles of male flowers, and the short spikes of female flowers, are produced on separate plants, from the axils of the leaves. The fruits, called Hemp-seeds, are small grey nuts or achenes, each containing a single oily seed. In common with other plants of the order, hemp abounds in silica which gives a roughness to its leaves and stems. In European medicine, the only hemp employed is that grown in India, which occurs in two principal forms, namely:—

1. Bhang, Siddhī or Sabzī (Hindustani); Hashish or Qinnaq (Arabic). This consists of the dried leaves and small stalks, which are of a dark green colour, coarsely broken, and mixed with here and there a few fruits. It has a peculiar but not unpleasant odour, and scarcely any taste. In India, it is smoked either with or without tobacco, but more commonly it is made up with flour and various additions into a sweetmeat or majun,[2033] of a green colour. Another form of taking it is that of an infusion, made by immersing the pounded leaves in cold water.

2. Ganja (Hindustani); Qinnab (Arabic); Guaza[2034] of the London drug-brokers. These are the flowering or fruiting shoots of the female plant, and consist in some samples of straight, stiff, woody stems some inches long, surrounded by the upward branching flower-stalks; in others of more succulent and much shorter shoots, 2 to 3 inches long, and of less regular form. In either case, the shoots have a compressed and glutinous appearance, are very brittle, and of a brownish-green hue. In odour and in the absence of taste ganja resembles bhang. It is said that after the leaves which constitute bhang have been gathered, little shoots sprout from the stem, and that these picked off and dried form what is called ganja.[2035]

Chemical Composition—The most interesting constituents of hemp, from a medical point of view, are the resin and volatile oil.

The former was first obtained in a state of comparative purity by T. and H. Smith in 1846.[2036] It is a brown amorphous solid, burning with a bright white flame and leaving no ash. It has a very potent action when taken internally, two-thirds of a grain acting as a powerful narcotic, and one grain producing complete intoxication. From the experiments of Messrs. Smith, it seems to us impossible to doubt that to this resin the energetic effects of cannabis are mainly due.

When water is repeatedly distilled from considerable quantities of hemp, fresh lots of the latter being used for each operation, a volatile oil lighter than water is obtained, together with ammonia. This oil, according to the observations of Personne (1857), is amber-coloured, and has an oppressive hemp-like smell. It sometimes deposits an abundance of small crystals. With due precautions it may be separated into two bodies, the one of which, named by Personne Cannabene,[2037] is liquid and colourless, with the formula C₁₈H₂₀; the other, which is called Hydride of Cannabene, is a solid, separating from alcohol in platy crystals to which Personne assigns the formula C₁₈H₂₂. He asserts that cannabene has indubitably a physiological action, and even claims it as the sole active principle of hemp. Its vapour he states to produce when breathed a singular sensation of shuddering, a desire of locomotion, followed by prostration and sometimes by syncope.[2038] Bohlig in 1840 observed similar effects from the oil, which he obtained from the fresh herb, just after flowering, to the extent of 0·3 per cent.

It remains to be proved whether an alkaloid is present in hemp, as suggested by Preobraschensky.[2039]

The other constituents of hemp are those commonly occurring in other plants. The leaves yield nearly 20 per cent. of ash.

As to the resin of Indian hemp, Bolas and Francis in treating it with nitric acid, converted it into Oxycannabin, C₂₀H₂₀N₂O₇. This interesting substance may, they say, be obtained in large prisms from a solution in methylic alcohol. It melts at 176° C. and then evaporates without decomposition; it is neutral.[2040] One of us (F.) has endeavoured to obtain it from the purified resin of charas, but without success.

Uses—Hemp is employed as a soporific, anodyne, antispasmodic, and as a nervous stimulant. It is used in the form of alcoholic extract, administered either in a solid or liquid form. In the East it is consumed to an enormous extent by Hindus and Mahomedans, who either smoke it with tobacco, or swallow it in combination with other substances.[2041]

Charas.

No account of hemp as a drug would be complete without some notice of this substance, which is regarded as of great importance by Asiatic nations.

Charas or Churrus is the resin which exudes in minute drops from the yellow glands, with which the plant is provided in increasing number according to the elevated temperature (and altitude?) of the country where it grows. The varieties of hemp richest in resin, at least in the Laos country in the Malayan Peninsula, scarcely attain the height of 3 feet, and show densely curled leaves.[2042] Charas is collected in several ways:—one is by rubbing the tops of the plants in the hands when the seeds are ripe, and scraping from the fingers the adhering resin. Another is thus performed:—men clothed in leather garments walk about among growing hemp, in doing which the resin of the plant attaches itself to the leather, whence it is from time to time scraped off. A third method consists in collecting, with many precautions to avoid its poisonous effects, the dust which is caused when heaps of dry bhang are stirred about.[2043]

By whichever of these processes obtained, charas is of necessity a foul and crude drug, the use of which is properly excluded from civilized medicine. As before remarked (p. 547) it is not obtainable from hemp grown indiscriminately in any situation even in India, but is only to be got from plants produced at a certain elevation on the hills.

The best charas, which is that brought from Yarkand, is a brown, earthy-looking substance, forming compact yet friable, irregular masses of considerable size. Examined under a strong pocket lens, it appears to be made up of minute, transparent grains of brown resin, agglutinated with short hairs of the plant. It has a hemp-like odour, with but little taste even in alcoholic solution. A second and a third quality of Yarkand charas represent the substance in a less pure state. Charas viewed under the microscope exhibits a crystalline structure, due to inorganic matter. It yields from ¼ to ⅓ of its weight of an amorphous resin, which is readily dissolved by bisulphide of carbon or spirit of wine. The resin does not redden litmus, nor is it soluble in caustic potash. It has a dark brown colour, which we have not succeeded in removing by animal charcoal. The residual part of charas yields to water a little chloride of sodium, and consists in large proportion of carbonate of calcium and peroxide of iron. These results have been obtained in examining samples from Yarkand.[2044] Other specimens which we have also examined, have the aspect of a compact dark resin.

Charas is exported from Yarkand[2045] and Kashgar, the first of which places exported during 1867, 1830 maunds (146,400 lb.) to Lê, whence the commodity is carried to the Punjab and Kashmir. Smaller quantities are annually imported from Kandahar and Samarkand;[2046] some charas appears also (1876) to be exported from Mandshuria to China. The drug is mostly consumed by smoking with tobacco; it is not found in European commerce.

STROBILI HUMULI.

Humulus vel Lupulus; Hops; F. Houblon; G. Hopfen.

Botanical Origin—Humulus Lupulus L.,—a diœcious perennial plant, producing long annual twining stems which climb freely over trees and bushes. It is found wild, especially in thickets on the banks of rivers, throughout all Europe, from Spain, Sicily and Greece to Scandinavia; and extends also to the Caucasus, the South Caspian region, and through Central and Southern Siberia to the Altai mountains. It has been introduced into North America, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), and Australia.

History—Hops have been used from a remote period in the brewing of beer, of which they are now regarded as an indispensable ingredient. Hop gardens, under the name humularia or humuleta, are mentioned as existing in France and Germany in the 8th and 9th centuries; and Bohemian and Bavarian hops have been known as an esteemed kind since the 11th century. A grant alleged to have been made by William the Conqueror in 1069, of hops and hop-lands in the county of Salop,[2047] would indicate, were it free from doubt, a very early cultivation of the hop in England.

As to the use made of hops in these early times, it would appear that they were regarded in somewhat of a medicinal aspect. In the Herbarium of Apuleius,[2048] an English manuscript written about a.d. 1050, it is said of the hop (hymele) that its good qualities are such that men put it in their usual drinks; and St. Hildegard,[2049] a century later, states that the hop (hoppho) is added to beverages, partly for its wholesome bitterness, and partly because it makes them keep.

Hops for brewing were among the produce which the tenants of the abbey of St. Germain in Paris[2050] had to furnish to the monastery in the beginning of the 9th century; yet in the middle of the 14th century, beer without such addition was still brewed in Paris.

The brewsters, bakers and millers of London were the subject of a mandate of Edward I. in a.d. 1298; but there is no reason for inferring that the manufacture of malt liquor at this period involved the use of hops. It is plain indeed that somewhat later, hops were not generally used, for in the 4th year of Henry VI. (1425-26), an information was laid against a person for putting into beer “an unwholesome weed called an hopp;”[2051] and in the same reign, Parliament was petitioned against “that wicked weed called hops.”

But it is evident that hops were soon found to possess good qualities, and that though their use was denounced, it was not suppressed. Thus in the regulations for the household of Henry VIII. (1530-31), there is an injunction that the brewer is “not to put any hops or brimstone into the ale”;[2052] while in the very same year (1530), hundreds of pounds of Flemish hops were purchased for the use of the noble family of L’Estranges of Hunstanton.[2053]

In 1552 the cultivation of hops in England was distinctly sanctioned by the 5th and 6th of Edward VI. c. 5, which directs that land formerly in tillage should again be so cultivated, excepting it should have been set with hops or saffron. Notwithstanding these facts, hops were for a long period hardly regarded an essential in brewing, as may be gathered from the remark of Gerarde (ob. a.d. 1607), who speaks of them as used “to season” beer or ale, explaining that notwithstanding their manifold virtues, they “rather make it a physical drinke to keepe the body in health, than an ordinary drinke for the quenching of our thirst.” In reality, other herbs were for a long period employed to impart to malt liquor a bitter or aromatic taste, as Ground Ivy (Nepeta Glechoma Benth.); anciently called Ale-hoof or Gill; Alecost (Balsamita vulgaris L.); Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale L.); and Sage (Salvia officinalis L.). Even Long Pepper and Bay Berries were used for the same purpose,[2054] but in addition to hops.

Though English hops were esteemed superior to foreign, and were extensively grown as early as 1603, as shown by an act of James I.,[2055] Flemish hops continued to be imported in considerable quantities down to 1693.

Structure—The inflorescence of the male plant constitutes a large panicle; that of the female is less conspicuous, consisting of stalked catkins which by their growth develope large leafy imbricating bracts, ultimately forming an ovoid cone or strobile, which is the officinal part. This catkin consists of a short central zigzag stalk, bearing overlapping rudimentary leaflets, each represented by a pair of stipules. Between them are 4 female florets, each supported by a bract. After flowering, the stipules as well as the bracts are much enlarged, and then form the persistent, yellowish-green, pendulous strobile. At maturity, each bract infolds at its base a small lenticular closed fruit or nut, ⅒ of an inch in diameter. The nut is surrounded by a membranous, one-leafed perigone, and contains within its fragile, brown shell an exalbuminous seed. These fruits, as well as the axis and the base of all the leaf-like organs, are beset with numerous shining, translucent glands, to which the aromatic smell and taste of hops are due.

Description—Hops as found in commerce consist entirely of the fully developed strobiles or cones, more or less compressed. They have a greenish yellow colour, an agreeable and peculiar aroma, and a bitter aromatic burning taste. When rubbed in the hand they feel clammy, and emit a more powerful odour. By keeping, hops lose their greenish colour and become brown, at the same time acquiring an unpleasant odour, by reason of the formation of a little valerianic acid. Exposure to the vapour of sulphurous acid retards or prevents this alteration. For medicinal use, hops smelling of sulphurous acid should be avoided, though in reality the acid speedily becomes innocuous. Liebig has refuted the objections raised by brewers to the sulphuring of hops.

Chemical Composition—Besides the constituents of the glands which are described in the next article, hops contain according to Etti’s elaborate investigations (1876, 1878) humulotannic acid and phlobaphene. The former is a whitish amorphous mass, soluble in alcohol, hot water or acetic ether, not in ether. By heating the humulotannic acid at 130° C., or by boiling its aqueous or alcoholic solutions, it gives off water, and is transformed into phlobaphene, a dark red amorphous substance,

The latter substance, on boiling it with dilute mineral acids, again loses water and furnishes glucose.

From raw phlobaphene ether removes the bitter principles of hops, a colourless crystallizable and a brown amorphous resin, besides chlorophyll and essential oil.

By distilling hops with water, 0·9 per cent. of essential oil are obtained. Personne (1854) stated it to contain Valerol,[2056] C₆H₁₀O, which passes into valerianic acid; the latter in fact occurs in the glands, yet according to Méhu[2057] only to the extent of 0·1 to 0·17 per cent. When distilled from the fresh strobiles the oil has a greenish colour, but a reddish-brown when old hops have been employed. We find it to be devoid of rotatory power, neutral to litmus paper, and not striking any remarkable coloration with concentrated sulphuric acid.

Griessmayer (1874) has shown that hops contain Trimethylamine, and in small proportion a liquid volatile alkaloid not yet analysed, which he terms Lupuline. The latter is stated to have the odour of conine, and to assume a violet hue when treated with chromate of potassium and sulphuric acid.

Lastly, Etti also found arabic (pectic) acid, phosphates, nitrates, malates, citrates, and also sulphates, chiefly of potassium, to occur in hops. The amount of ash afforded by hops dried at 100° C. would appear to be on an average about 6-7 per cent.

Production and Commerce—England was estimated as having in 1873, 63,276 acres under hops. The chief district for the cultivation is the county of Kent, where in that year 39,040 acres were devoted to this plant. Hops are grown to a much smaller extent in Sussex, and in still diminished quantity in Herefordshire, Hampshire, Worcestershire and Surrey. The other counties of England and the principality of Wales produce but a trifling amount, and Scotland none at all.

In continental Europe, hops are most largely produced in Bavaria and Württemberg, Belgium and France, but in each on a smaller scale than in England. France in 1872 is stated to have 9223 acres under hops.[2058]

Notwithstanding the extensive production of hops in England, there is a large importation from other countries. The importation in 1872 was 135,965 cwt., valued at £679,276: of this quantity, Belgium supplied 66,630 cwt., Germany 36,612 cwt., Holland 16,675 cwt., the United States 10,414 cwt., France 5,328 cwt. During the same period hops were exported from the United Kingdom to the extent of 31,215 cwt.[2059]

Uses—Hops are administered medicinally as a tonic and sedative, chiefly in the form of tincture, infusion or extract.

GLANDULÆ HUMULI.

Lupulina; Lupulin, Lupulinic Grains; F. Lupuline; G. Hopfendrüsen, Hopfenstaub.

Botanical Origin—Humulus Lupulus L. (see preceding article). The minute, shining, translucent glands of the strobile constitute when detached therefrom the substance called Lupulin.

History—The glands of hop were separated and chemically examined by L. A. Planche, a pharmacien of Paris, whose observations were first briefly described by Loiseleur-Deslongchamps in 1819.[2060] In the following year, Dr. A. W. Ives of New York[2061] published an account of his experiments upon hops and their glands, to which latter he applied the name of Lupulin. Payen and Chevallier, Planche and others, made further experiments on the same subject, endorsing the recommendation of Ives that lupulin (or, as they preferred to call it, Lupuline) might be advantageously used in medicine in place of hops.

Production—Lupulin is obtained by stripping off the bracts of hops, and shaking and rubbing them; and then separating the powder by a sieve. The powder thus detached ought to be washed by decantation, so as to remove from it the sand or earth with which it is always contaminated; finally it should be dried, and stored in well-closed bottles. From the dried strobiles, 8 to 12 per cent. of lupulin may be obtained.

Description—Lupulin seen in quantity appears as a yellowish-brown granular powder, having an agreeable odour of hops and a bitter aromatic taste. It is gradually wetted by water, instantly by alcohol or ether, but not by potash or sulphuric acid. By trituration in a mortar the cells are ruptured so that it may be worked into a plastic mass. Thrown into the air and then ignited, it burns with a brilliant flame like lycopodium.

Microscopic Structure—The lupulinic gland or grain, like the generality of analogous organs, is formed by an intumescence of the cuticle of the nuculæ and bracts of hop (see p. 552). Each grain is originally attached by a very short stalk, which is no longer perceptible in the drug. The gland, exhausted by ether and macerated in water, is a globular or ovoid thin-walled sac, measuring from 140 to 240 mkm. It consists of two distinct, nearly hemispherical parts; that originally provided with the stalk is built up of tabular polyhedric cells, whilst the upper hemisphere shows a continuous delicate membrane. This part therefore easily collapses, and thus exhibits a variety of form, the greater also as the grains turn pole or equator to the observer.[2062]

The hop gland is filled with a thick, dark brown or yellowish liquid, which in the drug is contracted into one mass occupying the centre of the gland. It may be expelled in minute drops when the wall is made to burst by warming the grain in glycerin. The colouring matter, to which the wall owes its fine yellow colour, adheres more obstinately to the thinner hemisphere, and is more easily extracted from the thicker part by means of ether.

Chemical Composition—The odour of lupulinic grains resides in the essential oil, described in the previous article. The bitter principle formerly called Lupulin or Lupulite was first isolated by Lermer (1863) who called it the bitter acid of hops (Hopfenbittersäure). It crystallizes in large brittle rhombic prisms, and possesses in a high degree the peculiar bitter taste of beer, in which however it can be present only in very small proportion, it being nearly insoluble in water, though easily dissolved by many other liquids. The composition of this acid, C₃₂H₅₀O₇, appears to approximate it to absinthiin; it is contained in the glands in but small proportion. Still smaller is the amount of another crystallizable constituent, regarded by Lermer as an alkaloid.

The main contents of the hop gland consist of wax (Myricylic palmitate, according to Lermer), and resins, one of which is crystalline and unites with bases.

A good specimen of German lupulin, dried over sulphuric acid, yielded us 7·3 per cent. of ash. The same drug exhausted by boiling ether, afforded 76·8 per cent. of an extremely aromatic extract, which on exposure to the steam-bath for a week, lost 3·03 per cent., this loss corresponding to the volatile oil and acids. The residual part was soluble in glacial acetic acid and could therefore contain but very little fatty matter.

Uses—The drug has the properties of hops, but with less of astringency. It is not often prescribed.

Adulteration—Lupulin is apt to contain sand, and on incineration often leaves a large amount of ash. Other extraneous matters which are not unfrequent may be easily recognized by means of a lens. As the essential oil in lupulin is soon resinified, the latter should be preferred fresh, and should be kept excluded from the air.