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Title: An essay on hasheesh
Including observations and experiments
Author: Victor Robinson
Release date: February 2, 2026 [eBook #77838]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Medical Review of Reviews, 1912
Credits: Carol Brown, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON HASHEESH ***
AN ESSAY ON
HASHEESH
INCLUDING
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS
BY
VICTOR ROBINSON
_Contributing Editor, Medical Review of Reviews_,
_Pharmaceutical Chemist, Columbia University_,
_Member of the American Chemical Society_,
_Author of_ “_Pathfinders in Medicine_.”
[Illustration]
MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS
TWO HUNDRED AND SIX BROADWAY
NEW YORK
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912
BY MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS
“What is left for us modern men? We cannot be Greek now.
The cypress of knowledge springs, and withers when it comes
in sight of Troy; the cypress of pleasure likewise, if it
has not died already at the root of cankering Calvinism;
the cypress of religion is tottering. What is left?
Science, for those who are scientific. Art for artists; and
all literary men are artists in a way. But science falls
not to the lot of all. Art is hardly worth pursuing now.
What is left? Hasheesh, I think: Hasheesh of one form or
another. We can dull the pangs of the present by living the
past again in reveries or learned studies, by illusions
of the fancy and a life of self-indulgent dreaming. Take
down the perfumed scrolls; open, unroll, peruse, digest,
intoxicate your spirit with the flavor. Behold, here is
the Athens of Plato in your narcotic visions; Buddha
and his anchorites appear; the raptures of St. Francis
and the fire-oblations of St. Dominic; the phantasms of
mythologies; the birth-throes of religion, the neurotism of
chivalry, the passion of past poems; all pass before you
in your Maya world of hasheesh, which is criticism.”--JOHN
ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
An Essay on Hasheesh
INCLUDING OBSERVATIONS AND
EXPERIMENTS.
By VICTOR ROBINSON.
“And now, borne far thru the steaming air floats an odor,
balsamic, startling; the odor of those plumes and stalks
and blossoms from which is exuding freely the narcotic
resin of the great nettle. The nostril expands quickly, the
lungs swell out deeply to draw it in: fragrance once known
in childhood, ever in the memory afterward, and able to
bring back to the wanderer homesick thoughts of midsummer
days in the shadowy, many-toned woods, over into which is
blown the smell of the hemp-fields.”
ALLEN: _The Reign of Law_.
“At the mere vestibule of the temple I could have sat and
drunk in ecstasy forever, but lo! I am yet more blessed. On
silent hinges the doors swing open, and I pass in.”
LUDLOW: _The Hasheesh Eater_.
Ailing man has ransacked the world to find balms to ease him of his
pains. And this is only natural, for what doth it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose his digestion? Let the tiniest nerve
be but inflamed, and it will bend the proudest spirit: humble is a
hero with a toothache! It is doubtful if Buddha himself could have
maintained his equanimity with a bit of dust on his conjunctiva.
Cæsar had a fever--and the eye that awed the world did lose its
lustre, and the tongue that bade the Romans write his speeches in
their books cried like a sick girl. Our flesh is heir to many ills,
and alas when the heritage falls due. Even pride and prejudice are
then forgotten, and Irishmen in need of purgatives are willing to use
rhubarb grown on English soil, while the Foreign Colombo gathered by
the feral natives in the untamed forests of Quilimani is consumed by
ladies who never saw anything wilder than a Fabian Socialist.
The modern descendant of Hippocrates draws his Materia Medica from
the uttermost ends of the earth: linseed from busy Holland and
floretted marigold from the exotic Levant; cuckoo’s cap from little
Helvetia, and pepper-elder from ample Brazil; biting cubebs from
spicy Borneo and fringed lichens from raw-winded Iceland; sweet flag
from the ponds of Burmah, coto bark from the thickets of Bolivia,
sleeping nightshade from the woods of Algeria, brownish rhatany
from the sands of Peru, purple crocus from the pastures of Greece,
aromatic vanilla from the groves of Mexico, golden seal from the
retreats of Canada, knotty aleppo from the plains of Kirghiz,
fever-tree from the hills of Tasmania, white saunders from the
mountains of Macassar. Idols are broken boldly nowadays, but the
daughter of Æsculapius does not fear, for Hygeia knows she will
always have a frenzied world of worshippers to kneel at her every
shrine in every land.
All the reservoirs of nature have been tapped to yield medicines for
man. From the mineral kingdom we take the alkali metals, the nitrogen
group, the compounds of oxygen, the healing waters, the halogens, the
nitrate of silver, the sulphate of copper, the carbonate of sodium,
the chloride of mercury, the hydroxide of potassium, the acetate of
lead, the citrate of lithium, the oxide of calcium, and the similar
salts of half a hundred elements from Aluminium to Zincum.
From the vegetable kingdom we extract the potent alkaloid; all things
that blossom and bloom, we knead them as we list: the broad rhizome
of iris, the wrinkled root of lappa, the inspissated juice of aloes,
the flower-heads of anthemis, the outer rind of orange, the inner
bark of cinnamon, the thin arillode of macis, the dense sclerotium of
ergot, the ovoid kernel of nutmeg, the pitted seed of rapa, the pale
spores of club-moss, the spongy pith of sassafras, the bitter wood of
quassia, the smoothish bark of juglans, the unripe fruit of hemlock,
the fleshy bulb of scilla, the brittle leaves of senna, the velvet
thallus of agaric, the balsamic resin of benzoin, the scaly strobiles
of hops, the styles and stigmas of zea.
The animal kingdom has likewise been forced to bring tribute to its
highest brother: we use in medicine the blood-sucking leech, the
natural emulsion from the mammary glands of the cow, the internal
fat from the abdomen of the hog, the coppery-green Spanish fly,
the globular excrements of the leaping antelope, the fixed oil
from the livers of the cod, the fresh bile of the stolid ox, the
vitellus of the hen’s egg, the fatty substance from the huge head
of the sperm-whale, the odorous secretion of the musk-deer, the
swimming-bladder of regal fish, the inner layer of the oyster-shell,
the branched skeleton of the red polyp, the dried follicles of the
boring beaver, the bony horns of the crimson deer, the thyreoid
glands of the simple sheep, the coagulated serum from the blood of
the horse, the wax and the honey from the hive of the busy bee, and
even the disgusting cockroaches that infest the kitchen-shelves and
climb all over the washtubs are used as a diuretic and for dropsy.
Little it matters by whom the healing agent was ushered in, for
mankind in its frantic search for health asks not the creed or color
of its medical savior: Pipsissewa was introduced into medicine by the
redskins, buchu by the hottentots, quassia by a negro slave, zinc
valerianate by a French prince, krameria by a Spanish refugee, ipecac
by the Brazilian aborigines, guaiac by a syphilitic warrior, aspidium
by a Swiss widow.
“Medicine,” wrote the greatest of literary physicians, “appropriates
everything from every source that can be of the slightest use to
anybody who is ailing in any way, or like to be ailing from any
cause. It learned from a monk how to use antimony, from a Jesuit how
to cure agues, from a friar how to cut for stone, from a soldier
how to treat gout, from a sailor how to keep off scurvy, from a
postmaster how to sound the Eustachian tube, from a dairy-maid how
to prevent small-pox, and from an old market-woman how to catch the
itch-insect. It borrowed acupuncture and the moxa from the Japanese
heathen, and was taught the use of lobelia by the American savage.”
And all these substances are daily being powdered, sifted,
granulated, desiccated, percolated, macerated, distilled, sublimed,
comminuted, dissolved, precipitated, filtered, strained, expressed,
clarified, crystallized, ignited, fused, calcined, torrified and
deflagrated into powders, pills, wafers, capsules, ampoules,
extracts, tinctures, infusions, decoctions, syrups, cordials,
essences, magmas, suppositories, tablets, troches, ointments,
plasters, abstracts, liniments, collodions, cataplasms and so on and
so on.
And all these finished preparations have a most laudable object in
view--the eradication of disease and the alleviation of pain. Ah,
this is indeed a quest worth the striving for! To accomplish the
quadrature of the circle, or ferret out the secret of perpetual
motion, may be highly interesting, tho of problematical value
only; but when a clammy sweat bathes the brow, and the delicate
nerves twitch till the tortured human frame shakes in anguish, how
important is it to be able to lift the veil from a condition like
this! He who conquers disease is greater than the builder of cities
or the creator of empires. His value is above the poets, statesmen
cannot be compared unto him, educators equal him not in worth. A
careful economist like John Stuart Mill tells us it is doubtful if
all the labor-saving machinery ever invented has lessened for a
single day the work of a single human being,--but when a discovery
is made in medicine it becomes a sun which sheds its beneficence
on all who suffer. The sick pauper of to-day lying in a charity
hospital receives better medical treatment than the sick potentate of
yesterday lying in his costly palace.
But so far medical science has only unhorsed, not overthrown, its
ancient antagonist. In spite of all the remedies, in spite of all
the research, mankind as yet possesses no satisfactory antidote for
suffering; it knows no drug which can give pain its _congé_ for more
than a transient period.
But altho the time of relief be limited, the simple fact that there
are substances which do have some power over pain is sufficient
to make the study of narcotism highly important. And of all the
narcotics--a narcotic being roughly defined as a substance which
relieves pain and produces excitability followed by sleep--none is
more alluring to the imagination than the intoxicating hemp-plant,
scientifically known as _Cannabis sativa_ and popularly famed as
Hasheesh--those strange flowering-tops that appeal to a pot-bellied
bushman of Australia who smokes it in a pipe of animal tusks, and
to so hyper-esoteric a _littérateur_ as Charles Baudelaire of the
Celestial City of Art.
The habitat of the hemp-plant is extensive: not by the hand of man
were the seeds sown that gave it birth near the Caspian Sea, where it
wildly flourishes on the banks of the immense Volga--that mighty mass
of liquid ever stupendously rolling thru a limitless continent; it
climbs the Altai range and thrives where the Himalaya rears its stony
head ten thousand feet on high; it extends to Persia, and China knows
it; the Congo river and the hot Zambesi bathe it in Africa, it is not
a stranger in sunny France, and how well it thrives in Kentucky the
numerous readers of the _Reign of Law_ will ever remember.
In the seventeenth century Rumphius noticed that there were
differences between the hemp grown in India and the hemp grown
in Europe. In the nineteenth century Lamarck accepted these
distinctions, and believing the Indian hemp to be a separate species,
agreed in calling it _Cannabis indica_ as a distinction from the
_Cannabis sativa_ of Linnæus and Willdenow. But it is now conceded
that from a botanical standpoint the variations are by no means
certain or important enough to warrant the maintenance of Indian hemp
as a species distinct from common hemp. And as the greater includes
the lesser, in botany as well as in geometry, its botanical name is
_Cannabis sativa_, with _Cannabis indica_ as one variety, just as
_Cannabis americana_ is another variety.
The hemp grown in Russia is of a fibrous quality, and is largely used
for the gallows--to hang the opponents of despotism. In England many
a bold highwayman has been embraced by it the last moment of his
roving life, and has thus philanthropically given his mother-tongue
a chance to enrich herself. For instance, a hempie means a rascal
for whom the hemp grows; a hempen collar means the hangman’s noose;
a hempen widow means one whose husband has been hanged; to sow hemp
means to live in a manner likely to lead to the gallows. Rope,
however, is not the only use to which the fibers can be put; they
are extensively employed in clothing, and in the manufacture of paper.
The plant is also cultivated for its seeds, which contain a large
quantity of oil, and is therefore used in pharmacy for emulsions,
and in the domestic arts because of its drying properties. But the
seeds are chiefly used as a favorite food for birds. In fact, some
birds consume them to excess, which should lead us to suspect that
these seeds, tho they cannot intoxicate us, have a narcotic effect
on the feathered creatures, making them dream of a happy birdland
where there are no gilded cages, and where the men are gunless and
the women hatless. The seeds also contain sugar and considerable
albumin,--making them very nutritious; rabbits eat them readily. They
are consumed also by some human beings, but are not as good as the
sunflower seeds which Marianka ceaselessly and carelessly crunched,
while Olenine looked upon her moving lips with a lover’s despair.
The medicinal hemp--the hemp with the potent narcotic principles--is
_Cannabis indica_. In this case we have an example of Compensation
that would have made Emerson’s eyes glisten, for altho the fibrous
texture of hemp disappears under a southern sun, to make up for the
loss there is secreted a resin--_Churrus_. This resin is collected
in a most singular manner. During the hot season, according to
Dr. O’Shaughnessy, men clothed in leather run violently thru the
hemp-fields and brush forcibly against the plants. The soft, sticky
resin adheres to the garments, and is later scraped off and kneaded
into balls. Dr. M’Kinnon informed Dr. O’Shaughnessy that in the
province of Nipal the leather attire is dispensed with, and that the
natives run naked thru the hemp fields, gathering the resin on their
bare bodies.
When the larger leaves turn brown and fall to the ground, it is
an indication of the approach of maturity. The flowering tops are
then cut off, and subjected to a process of rolling and treading by
trained human feet. The hemp is placed on a hard floor surrounded
by a rail; the natives take hold of a revolving post, march around
and around, singing the while, and press the plants in a technical
manner. Whether the perspiration which drips from their unshod
organs of locomotion works any chemical change in the composition of
Cannabis has not yet been determined by E. M. Holmes or E. W. Dixon.
It is not surprising to learn that the dealing in Hasheesh is a
Government monopoly, and that heavy punishment is meted out to those
offenders who buy or sell it without permission. “The importation of
it into Egypt is so strongly interdicted,” explains the _Dispensatory
of the United States_, “that the mere possession of it is a penal
offense; we found it, however, readily procurable. It is said to be
brought into the country in pigs’ bladders, in the Indo-European
steamers, and thrown out at night during the passage into the
Suez canal, to be picked up by the boats of confederates.” This
deplorable state of affairs is apt to remind us of our own temperance
towns--where there are always some individuals who possess the
faculty of obtaining whisky _ad libitum_.
_Cannabis sativa_ is a member of the _Moraceæ_ or Mulberry Family,
which family was formerly an order of apetalous dicotyledenous trees
or shrubs, but is now reduced to a tribe of the _Urticaceæ_ or Nettle
Family which embraces 110 genera and 1500 species.
Cannabis is an annual herb, and thus endures but one year, because
instead of storing away nutritious matter in underground bulbs and
tubers like the industrious biennials or perennials, it exultingly
expends its new-born energy in the production of beautiful blossoms
and the maturation of fruit and seed. “This completed,” says Asa
Gray, “the exhausted and not at all replenished individual perishes.”
Sexually, hemp is diœcious, which means that its staminate and
pistillate organs are not on the same plant. When cultivated for its
narcotic properties, only the flowering tops of the unfertilized
female plants are used, and the male plants are eradicated with
great care, as it is claimed that a single one can spoil an entire
field--something like a Boccaccion gentleman in a nunnery. The
process of weeding out the males is performed by an expert called a
poddar, who brings to his work a conscious technical skill, and an
unconscious but interesting argument in illustration of what Lester
F. Ward has described as the Androcentric World View, for the poddar
deliberately reverses the names of the sexes, and designates the
useful females as males, and calls the rejected males the females.
If we had such impudent poddars in the animal world, no doubt the
valuable Miss Jane Addams would be metamorphosed into James, while
the unnecessary Mr. Anthony Comstock would be adorned with a feminine
appellation.
Cannabis is from 4 to 12 feet in height; its stem is angular,
branching, and covered with matted hairs; its leaves are palmate
and therefore roughly resemble an open hand; its leaflets are
lance-shaped, possessing margins dentated with saw-like teeth; its
flowers are yellow and axillary, the male cluster being a raceme and
therefore pedicelled, and the female a spike and consequently sessile
or stemless; the five male organs or stamens contain pendulous
double-celled sacs or anthers; the two female organs or pistils have
glandular stigmas, the stigma being the spot where fertilization
occurs; the fruit is a gray nut or achene, each containing a single
oily seed; the whole plant is covered with a scarcely visible down;
the roughness of the leaves and stem is due to the silica, which is a
characteristic of the plants of the _Moraceæ_.
Not much need be said of the microscopical characteristics of hemp,
for altho the powder contains several histological elements, as
pollen grains, glands, crystals, resin, fibres, vessels, stone cells,
epidermis, parenchyma,--indicating presence of stem, leaf, flower,
seed,--its characteristic hairs or trichomes with their cystolith
deposits are of sufficient diagnostic value to make it readily
recognizable.
Unfortunately, when we come to the chemical constituents of
Cannabis, certainty is at an end. As Dorvault’s _L’Officine_ says,
“La composition chimique du cannabis indica est mal connue.” The
conquests of man are peculiar: he lays a cable under the roaring
ocean, and he flashes his messages thru limitless miles of space;
beneath the surface of the earth he rides on an iron horse, and
bird-like he sails thru the trackless air. But put this common drug
before him and he cannot determine its chemical composition. The
careful experimenters and the expert assayers are balked.
“I have extracted an alkaloid from hasheesh,” says Preobraschensky,
“and it is potent.” “No, we have found the active constituent,” say
T. and H. Smith; “it is the resin cannabin.” “No,” says Personne,
“I have isolated the important ingredient; it is the amber-colored
volatile oil, cannabene.” “Oh, no,” says Frankel, “I have discovered
the active principle--it is a phenol aldehyde.” “No, indeed,” say
Wood, Spivey and Easterfield, “it is we who have separated the only
active ingredient--it is a red oil, cannabinol.” “Oh, not at all,”
says Hamilton, “not one of these is the active constituent; in fact,
the active constituent has not yet been isolated.” In such an arena,
where the masters dispute, it behooves the amateur to speak with a
stammering tongue.
That doubt should prevail on this subject is all the more remarkable
when we consider that hemp has been known from a time whereof the
mind of man runneth not to the contrary--to use a phrase which seems
to delight the lawyers. In the _Odyssey_, a thousand years before
the advent of the Christian era, Homer sang of the assuager of
grief or Nepenthes, which is believed to have been the hemp-plant.
Hemp thus comes ushered into history, held in the beautiful hand
of Helen. Hesychius narrates that the Thracian women made sheets
of hemp. Pliny says hemp was known to the Romans, who manufactured
cordage from it. The Father of History relates that the Scythians
threw the seeds of hemp on red-hot stones, and bathed themselves in
the vapor, crying with exultation. Moschion records that the ship
_Syracusia_, built for Hiero--kinsman of Archimedes--was rigged
with hempen ropes. In the most ancient of all Hindu medical works,
_Susruta_, hemp is recommended for catarrh. The Pandit Moodoosudun
Gooptu found in the _Rajniguntu_ a clear account of hemp. A Sanskrit
work on Materia Medica, _Rajbulubha_, alludes to the use of hemp
in gonorrhea. According to Kamalakantha Vidyalanka, hemp was early
forbidden to pious Brahmins. The old Arabic and Persian writers
made numerous references to cannabis, and declared its narcotic
properties were discovered by Haider. Haider was a rigid monk who
built a monastery on the mountains between Nishabor and Ramah. For
ten years he never left his hermitage, never indulged in even a
fleeting moment’s pleasure. One burning summer’s day when the fiery
sun glared angrily upon Mother Earth as if he wished to wither up
her breasts, Haider stepped out from his cloister and walked alone
to the fields. All around him lay the vegetation weary and without
life, but one plant danced in the heat with joy. Haider plucked
it, partook of it, and returned to the convent a happier man. The
monks who saw him immediately noticed the change in their chief. He
encouraged conversation, and acted boisterously. He then led his
companions to the fields, and the holy men partook of the hasheesh,
and were transformed from austere ascetics into jolly good fellows.
At the death of Haider, in conformity with his desire, his disciples
planted the hemp in an arbor around his tomb.---- In that portion
of the Chinese herbal, _Rh-ya_, which was written 500 B.C., the
seed and flower-bearing kinds of hemp are noticed. In the first
century, Dioscorides--the most renowned of the ancient writers on
Materia Medica--recommended the seeds in the form of a cataplasm to
soothe inflammation. In the second century, Galen wrote that it was
customary to give hemp to guests at banquets to promote hilarity
and happiness. At the beginning of the third century, the physician
Hoa-Thoa used hemp as an anesthetic in surgical operations. In the
thirteenth century, garments of hemp became common thruout Southern
Europe, and it may well be that Beatrice herself wore it when Dante
first saw the maiden in her father’s house.
There is a remarkable episode in the history of Hasheesh, indicating
how the character of a people may be affected by the surrounding
vegetation. Mohammedanism, like all other theologies, has been rent
by schisms, and the question as to who was the legitimate successor
of the Prophet split this Oriental faith into two great sects--the
Sunnis and the Shiahs. The latter were the heretics, as they
considered Mohammed’s son-in-law the true imam. The Shiahs themselves
were further subdivided into several parties, the Ismaelites being
the most important. The Ismaelites were especially powerful in
Persia, and later--thru the instrumentality of an escaped prisoner
who seized the throne--gained a firm foothold in Egypt. A grand lodge
was formed in the city of Cairo--on the banks of the river whose
ancient waters heard the hammering at the quarries for the rearing
of the Great Pyramid. Many rules were now made by the Ismaelites,
and the petty race of perishable men was much flustered, while the
immortal Nile flowed indifferently from its equatorial cradle,
refreshing the crimson water-lilies, bathing the reeds that lined
its shore, and wetting the sands where the thoughtful Sphinx opens
not its lips.
In the course of time this lodge was visited by the clever Ismaelite,
Hassan Ben Sabbah--a boyhood friend of Omar Khayyám--who was received
with acclamation. Hassan soon received enough honors to excite
jealousy, and while plotting for more power was defeated and forced
to disappear from Egypt, but, after traveling awhile, he settled near
Kuhistan. He gathered around him a considerable number of followers,
and by strategy, in 1090, captured the powerful Persian fortress of
Alamut. Hassan now introduced a new feature into his society--the
employment of secret murder against all enemies. It was the Sheikh of
this organization who loomed large in medieval folk-lore as the Old
Man of the Mountains. Many young men became disciples, and willingly
performed the bloody work. These youths were known as the _Fedais_
or Devoted Ones. When a Devoted One was selected to commit murder,
he was first stupefied with hasheesh, and while in this state was
brought into the magnificent gardens of the sheikh. All the sensual
and stimulating pleasures of the erotic orient surrounded the
excited youth, and exalted by the delicious hypnotic he had taken,
the hot-blooded fanatic felt that the gates of heaven were already
ajar, and heard them swing open on their golden hinges. When the
effect of the drug disappeared and the Devoted One was reduced to his
normal condition, he was informed that thru the generosity of his
superior he had been permitted to foretaste the delights of Paradise.
The Devoted One believed this readily enough--disciples are always
credulous--and therefore was eager to die or to kill at a word from
his master. From these hasheesh-eaters, the Arabian name of which
is _hashshashin_, was derived the term “assassin.” It is not known
at what date the epithet was first applied to other secret slayers.
The Assassins soon became a terrible scourge, and the very sands of
the desert almost learnt to tremble before them. Many an unprepared
breast felt their daggers, and many a surprised stomach tried in
vain to vomit up their poisons. Prince and calif they struck down,
and more than one haughty chief paid tribute to the Old Man of the
Mountains. During the invasion of Palestine by the Crusaders, the
Syrian branch of the Assassins reached its bloody zenith, and who
shall say how many high-born damsels wept for knightly shields that
lay low in the dust of Lebanon? The power of the Assassins was
destroyed in Persia about the middle of the thirteenth century, and
some years later the Mameluke sultan of Egypt exterminated them in
Syria. But just as there are still some Innsbruck Jesuits who pray
for the revival of the Spanish Inquisition, so some remnants of
the Assassins yet linger between the Tigris river and the mount of
Taurus--but what of that? The Old Man of the Mountains now sleeps in
Death’s Valley, and not all the hasheesh from Bengal could exalt him.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleon invaded
Egypt--and grew philosophic as he met the gaze of the prehistoric
pyramids--hasheesh was brought prominently to the notice of
Europeans by the accounts of DeSacy and Rouger. By this time its
narcotic properties must have been known to the Occidentals, for as
far back as 1690 Berlu in his _Treasury of Drugs_ described it as
“of an infatuating quality and pernicious use.” Nevertheless, its
introduction into the Pharmacopeias of Europe and the United States
is due mainly to the elaborate experimentation carried on during
1839 and several succeeding years by the talented Dr. William B.
O’Shaughnessy, Professor of Chemistry in the Medical College of
Calcutta.
This brings us to the physiological action of Cannabis. It primarily
stimulates the brain, has a mydriatic effect upon the pupil, slightly
accelerates the pulse, sometimes quickens and sometimes retards
breathing, produces a ravenous appetite, increases the amount of
urine, and augments the contractions of the uterus. In other words,
it has an effect on the nervous, respiratory, circulatory, digestive,
excretory and genito-urinary systems.
As a therapeutic agent hasheesh has its eulogizers, tho like many
other drugs it has been replaced by later remedies in various
disorders for which it was formerly used. Old drugs, like old folks,
must give way to the new, and even the therapeutic master-builders
must beware when the young generation of healing-agents knocks on the
door of health.
In medicinal doses Cannabis is used as an aphrodisiac, for neuralgia,
to quiet maniacs, for the cure of chronic alcoholism and morphine and
chloral habits, for mental depression, hysteria, softening of the
brain, nervous vomiting, for distressing cough, for St. Vitus’ dance,
and for the falling sickness so successfully simulated by Kipling’s
Sleary--epileptic fits of a most appalling kind. It is used in spasm
of the bladder, in migraine, and when the dreaded _Bacillus tetanus_
makes the muscles rigid. It is a uterine tonic, and a remedy in the
headaches and hemorrhages occurring at the final cessation of the
menses. It has been pressed into the service of the diseases that
mankind has named in honor of Venus. According to Osler, cannabis
is sometimes useful in locomotor ataxia. Christison reports a case
in which Cannabis entirely cured the intense itching of eczema,
while the patient was enjoying the delightful slumber which the
hemp induced. It is much employed as an hypnotic in those cases
where opium because of long-continued use has lost its efficiency.
As a specific in hydrophobia it is sometimes marvelous, for Dr. J.
W. Palmer writes that he himself has seen a sepoy, an hour before
furiously hydrophobic, under the influence of cannabis drinking water
freely and pleasantly washing his face and hands! Its function in
this unspeakable affliction should be investigated carefully, for it
will be a gala day for mankind when it can cease to fear Montaigne’s
terrible line: “The saliva of a wretched dog touching the hand of
Socrates, might disturb and destroy his intellect.”
The official definition of _Cannabis indica_ as given by the Eighth
Decennial Revision of our _Pharmacopeia_ is as follows: “The dried
flowering tops of the pistillate plants of _Cannabis sativa_ Linné
(Fam. _Moraceæ_), grown in the East Indies and gathered while the
fruits are yet undeveloped, and carrying the whole of their natural
resin.” Three preparations of the drug are official: an Extract, a
Fluid-extract, and a Tincture.
In the last (third) edition of the _National Formulary_, hemp enters
into four galenicals: in chloral and bromine compound which is used
as a sedative and hypnotic, in chloroform Anodyne which is used in
diarrhoea and cholera, in Brown Sequard’s anti-neuralgic pills, and
in corn collodion. Hemp is a constituent in the majority of corn
remedies. Not many drugs are used for both the brain and the feet,
but with cannabis we have this anomaly: a man may see visions by
swallowing his corn-cure.
Out of the enormous number of prescriptions in which hasheesh
enters as an ingredient, only half a dozen can be here represented.
In Hager’s _Pharmaceutische Praxis_ occurs this prescription for
gonorrhea:
=℞=
Kali nitrici
Natri nitrici ana 5,0
Extracti Hyoscyami 0,5
Aquæ Amygdalarum amararum 10,0
Emulsionis Cannabis fructus 200,0
For dysmenorrhea the _Journal de Médecine de Paris_ recommends the
following suppositories, with the directions that one be introduced
every evening, commencing with the fifth day before the menses:
=℞=
Ex. cannab. indicæ gr. ¼
Ex. belladonnæ gr. ¼
Ol. theobrom. q. s.--M.
For phthisis, when accompanied by insomnia and nervous dyspepsia, Dr.
S. G. Bonney prescribes:
=℞=
Strychnin, sulph. gr. ⅔
Extracti opii gr. j
Extracti cannabis indicæ gr. j ss
Salolis gr. c.
Aloini gr. ss.--M.
Pone in capsulas No. xx
Dr. Rankin fights dyspepsia with the following formula, one capsule
being given after meals:
=℞=
Zinci valeratis ʒj
Acidi carbolici gr. xl
Acidi arsenosi gr. ss
Extracti cannabis indicæ. gr. v.--M.
Pone in capsulas No. xx.
When a patient of Van Harlingen is attacked with _ichthyosis
hystrix_, the disagreeable skin-disease finds itself daily painted
with this preparation:
=℞=
Acid. salicylici ʒss
Ex. cannabis ind gr. x
Collodii f℥j--M.
Dr. Da Costa endeavors to relieve impotence by giving his patients,
morning and evening, this pill:
=℞=
Ex. cannabis indicæ
Ex. nucis vomicæ aa gr. xv
Ex. ergotae aquosi ʒj.--M.
Et. ft. pil. No. xxx
The results of the prolonged use of large doses of Cannabis are thus
epitomized by Alfred Stillé: “The habitual use of this drug entails
consequences no less mischievous than are produced by alcohol
and opium; the face becomes bloated, the eyes injected, the limbs
weak and tremulous, the mind sinks into a state of imbecility, and
death by marasmus is the ultimate penalty paid for the overstrained
pleasure it imparts.”
Poisoning by hasheesh is treated by the administration of emetics
(what poison isn’t), lemon-juice, tannin, coffee, ammonia,
strychnine, atropine, spirit of nitrous ether. Electricity and
artificial respiration are often useful.
A strange thing about hasheesh is that an overdose has never produced
death in man or the lower animals. Not one authentic case is on
record in which Cannabis or any of its preparations destroyed life.
We thus have a poison which lacks a maximum and a fatal dose. Indeed,
if we desire to be finical, we can claim that according to what
is now considered the best definition of a poison, Cannabis is no
poison at all, for the aforesaid best definition defines a poison
as “any substance which is capable of causing death, otherwise than
mechanically, when introduced into the body or applied to it”--and
Cannabis does not seem capable of causing death by chemical or
physiological action.
“Hemp,” says Professor Horatio C. Wood, “is not a dangerous drug;
even the largest doses of its active preparations, altho causing most
alarming symptoms, do not compromise life.”
“We have never been able,” testify Drs. Houghton and Hamilton, “to
give an animal a sufficient quantity of the drug to produce death.
When study of the drug was first commenced, careful search on the
literature of the subject was made to determine its toxicity. Not a
single case of fatal poisoning have we been able to find reported,
altho often alarming symptoms may occur. A dog weighing about 25
pounds received an injection of 2 ounces of the U. S. P. fluidextract
in the jugular vein, with the expectation that it would certainly
be sufficient to kill the animal. To our surprise the animal after
being unconscious for about a day and a half, recovered completely.
Another dog received about 7 grams of the solid extract with the
same result.”
That herbivorous animals are even less affected by it I know from
my own simple experiments. I gave a rabbit a drachm and a half of
the fluidextract of cannabis. No sooner did I release the animal
than it began to nibble a commonplace vegetable, indifferent to
the circumstance that it had been baptised with the most precious
opiate of the orient. For four hours I watched this member of the
genus _Lepus_, but no physical effects could be observed, while the
mild expression of its gentle eyes induced me to conclude that all
mental manifestations were lacking to such a degree that the bunny
still worshiped the rather material trinity of crackers, carrots and
cabbages. This rabbit was sold to an experienced dealer, and sometime
later while passing the store, I learnt it had become the sire of a
goodly progeny, but what I really would like to learn is this: will
those little innocent rabbits--with their asinine ears and angelic
eyes--ever know of their father’s enforced hasheesh debauch?
Few creatures have so slight a hold on life as the pretty
guinea-pig--which does not come from Guinea and is not a pig. A
blow of the hand, a bit of moisture, a breath of cold, and their
squealing is done. But they do not mind cannabis. I chose a fine
fellow, anesthetized his glossy back with ethyl chloride, and then
by means of a hypodermic syringe injected 100 minims of the powerful
fluidextract into his circulation. There were no results. After the
elapse of some hours the generous cavy so far forgot the incident as
to pull some sweet-pea pods from my hand.
Dr. O’Shaughnessy says that all his experiments “tended to
demonstrate that, while carnivorous animals and fish, dogs, cats,
swine, vultures, crows, and adjutants invariably and speedily
exhibited the intoxicating influence of the drug, the graminivorous,
such as the horse, deer, monkey, goat, sheep, and cow, experienced
but trivial effects from any dose we administered.” Lieutaud and
Mabillat say the same.
Up to this period we have considered hasheesh from the historic,
botanic, microscopic, chemic, physiologic, therapeutic and
pharmacologic viewpoints: what then remains? Why, friends, the best
is yet to be, the last for which the first was made--as Browning
would say.
Why has everyone heard of opium? Because of its somnifacient and
myotic properties? No, but because sixty million pounds are consumed
by people for the purpose of pleasure. It is the same with hasheesh.
All heathens use it to increase their joys: Moors, Mohammedans,
Malays, Burmese, Siamese, Hindoos, Hottentots, Australian Bushmen
and Brazilian Indians--three hundred millions of them. The grateful
Orientals have endowed their hasheesh with such epithets as exciter
of desire, increaser of pleasure, cementer of friendship, leaf of
delusion, the laughter-mover, causer of the reeling gait. “It is real
happiness,” says Monsieur Moreau, and Herbert Spencer quotes the
sentence in his _Principles of Psychology_,--“It is real happiness
which hasheesh causes.”
It is unreasonable to suppose that a powerful narcotic like cannabis
will produce uniform results in all instances, when it is notorious
that even coffee affects different people in different ways; one
lady drinks tea to keep her awake at night, and her neighbor
drinks it to put her asleep; an Havana cigar irritates Brown and
tranquillizes Jones; a glass of grog causes one man to beat his
children, and induces another to give away his coat to strangers.
The constitutional peculiarity of the subject must always be taken
into consideration: some folks are so absurd as to become afflicted
with nettle-rash after partaking of delicious strawberries; others
are poisoned by an egg; some become ill in the presence of the
violet, and others faint when they smell the lily; Tissot mentions a
person who vomited if he took a grain of sugar; Louis XIV had grand
manners, but he preferred the odor of cat’s urine to that of the red
rose. “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean.”
Idiosyncrasy may not be the star performer, but it certainly plays an
important rôle in the therapeutic drama.
No drug in the entire Materia Medica is capable of producing
such a diversity of effects as cannabis indica. “Of the action of
hasheesh,” writes Professor Stillé, “many and various descriptions
have been given which differ so widely among themselves that they
would scarcely be supposed to apply to the same agent, had we not
every day a no less remarkable instance of the same kind before us
in the case of alcohol. As the latter enlivens or saddens, excites
or depresses, fills with tenderness, or urges to brutality, imparts
vigor and activity, or nauseates and weakens, so does the former give
rise to even a still greater variety of phenomena, according to the
natural disposition of the person, and his existing state of mind,
the quantity of the drug, and the combinations in which it is taken.”
And not only is there a contrariety and dissimilarity of action,
but sometimes there is no action at all. Cannabis is certainly
the coquette of drugdom. Take agaric, and it will stop your
perspiration--take jaborandi, and it will sweat you half to death;
take creosote, and it will prevent emesis--take ipecac, and it
will vomit you till your very guts cry out for mercy; take eserine,
and your pupils will contract--take atropine, and they will dilate;
veratrine will make you sneeze, the dust of sanguinaria will give you
a bloody nose, aloes will act on your lower bowel, podophyllum will
work on the upper, squill will make you pass water by the quart, an
injection of strychnine will stimulate you, a dose of morphine will
put you in the arms of Morpheus,--but take cannabis, and who can
predict the result? It may do wondrous things to you, and it may let
you strictly alone.
To a worker on the Associated Press named I. M. Norr, I gave 30
minims of the fluidextract. There were no results. To a law student
named Aaron Wolman, I gave 40 minims. There was no more effect than
if he had taken 40 drops of water. It must be added, however, that
these experimenters, instead of putting themselves in a receptive
state, had determined beforehand to fight the influence of the drug.
On the evening of May 18th, 1910, I gave 25 minims to Dr. Anna
Mercy, and altho she threw herself at the shrine of science in a way
that must have astonished the sober old altar of experiment, there
were no results worth mentioning, except that while in the evening
she looked respectable, in the morning she looked disreputable.
Had all my experiments turned out thus, this essay would never have
been written. But I have had results fully as interesting as those
achieved by O’Shaughnessy, Moreau, Mabillat, Reidel, Schroff, Wood,
Bell, Christison, Aubert, and many others, including our gifted
traveler-poet Bayard Taylor.
My brother Frederic Robinson took 25 minims in the presence of
some ladies whom he had invited to witness the fun. An hour passed
without results. A second hour followed, but--to use the slang of
the street--there was nothing doing. The third hour promised to
be equally fruitless, and as it was already late in the evening,
the ladies said good-by. No sooner did they leave the room, than I
heard the hasheesh-laugh. The hemp was doing its work. In a shrill
voice my brother was exclaiming, “What foo-oolish people, what
foo-oo-ool-ish people to leave just when the show is beginning.”
The ladies came back. And it was a show. Frederic made Socialistic
speeches, and argued warmly for the cause of Woman Suffrage. He grew
most affectionate and insisted on holding a lady’s hand. His face was
flushed, his eyes were half closed, his abdomen seemed uneasy, but
his spirit was happy. He sang, he rhymed, he declaimed, he whistled,
he mimicked, he acted. He pleaded so passionately for the rights of
Humanity that it seemed he was using up the resources of his system.
But he was tireless. With both hands he gesticulated, and would brook
no interruption.
Peculiar ideas suggested themselves. For instance, he said something
was “sheer nonsense,” and then reasoned as follows: “Since shears are
the same as scissors, instead of sheer nonsense I can say scissors
nonsense.” He also said, “I will give you a kick in the tickle”--and
was much amused by the expression.
At all times he recognized those about him, and remained conscious
of his surroundings. When the approach of dawn forced the ladies
to depart, Frederic made a somewhat unsavory joke, and immediately
exclaimed triumphantly, “I wouldn’t have said that if the ladies
were here for a million dollars.” Someone yawned deeply, and being
displeased by the unexpected appearance of a gaping orifice, Frederic
melodramatically gave utterance to this Gorky-like phrase: “From
the depths of dirtiness and despair there rose a sickly odorous
yawn”--and instantly he remarked that the first portion of this
sentence was alliterative! Is it not strange that such consciousness
and such intoxication can exist in the same brain simultaneously?
The next day he remembered all that occurred, was in excellent
spirits, laughed much and easily, and felt himself above the petty
things of this world.
On May 19th, 1910, this world was excited over the visit of Halley’s
comet. It is pleasant to remember that the celestial guest attracted
as much attention as a political campaign or a game of baseball.
On the evening of this day, at 10 o’clock, I gave 45 minims to a
court stenographer named Henry D. Demuth. At 11.30 the effects of
the drug became apparent, and Mr. Demuth lost consciousness of his
surroundings to such an extent that he imagined himself an inhabitant
of Sir Edmund Halley’s nebulous planet. He despised the earth and
the dwellers thereon; he called it a miserable little flea-bite,
and claimed its place in the cosmos was no more important than a
flea-jump. With a scornful finger he pointed below, and said in a
voice of contempt, “That little joke down there, called the earth.”
“Victor,” he said, “you’re a fine fellow, you’re the smartest man in
Harlem, you’ve got the god in you, but the best thoughts you write
are low compared to the things we think up here.” A little later he
condescended to take me up with him, and said, “Victor, we’re up in
the realm now, and we’ll make money when we get down on that damned
measly earth again; they respect Demuth on earth.”
He imitated how Magistrate Butts calls a prisoner to
the bar. “Butts,” he explained, “is the best of them.
Butts--Buts--cigarette-butts.” If this irrelevant line should ever
fall beneath the dignified eyes of His Honor, instead of fining
his devoted stenographer for contempt of court, may he bear in his
learned mind the fact that under the influence of narcotics men are
mentally irresponsible.
By this time Mr. Demuth’s vanity was enormous. “God, Mark Twain and I
are chums,” he remarked casually. “God is wise, and I am wise. And to
think that people _dictate_ to me!”
He imagined he had material for a great book. “I’m giving you the
thoughts; slap them down, we’ll make a fortune and go whacks.
We’ll make a million. I’ll get half and Vic will get half. With
half a million we’ll take it easy for a while on this damned
measly earth. We’ll live till a hundred and two, and then we’ll
skedaddle didoo. At one hundred and two it will be said of Henry
Disque Demuth that he shuffled off this mortal coil. We’ll skip
into the great idea--hooray! hooray! Take down everything that is
signifi_cant_--with an accent on the _cant_--Immanuel Kant was a wise
man, and I’m a wise man; I am wise, because I’m wise.”
It is to be regretted that in spite of all the gabble concerning
the volume that was to make both of us rich, not even one line was
dictated by the inspired author. In fact he got no further than the
title, and it must be admitted that of all titles in the world, this
is the least catchy. It is as follows: “Wise is God; God is Wise.”
Later came a variation in the form of a hissing sound which was
meant to be an imitation of the whizzing of Halley’s comet; there
was a wild swinging of the sheets as a welcome to the President;
a definition of religion as the greatest joke ever perpetrated;
some hasheesh-laughter; and the utterance of this original epigram:
Shakespeare, seltzer-beer, be cheerful.
A little later all variations ceased, for the subject became a
monomaniac, or at any rate, a fanatic. He became thoroly imbued with
the great idea that the right attitude to preserve towards life is
to take all things on earth as a joke. Hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of times he repeated: “The idea of the great idea, the idea
of the great idea, the idea of the great idea.” No question could
steer him out of this track. “Who’s up on the comet? Any pretty girls
there?” asked Frederic. “The great idea is up there,” was the answer.
“Where would you fall if you fell off the comet?”
“I’d fall into the great idea.”
“What do you do when you want to eat and have no money?”
“You have to get the idea.”
“When will you get married?”
“When I get the idea.”
Midnight came, and he was still talking about his great idea. At one
o’clock I felt bored. “If you don’t talk about anything else except
the idea, we’ll have to quit,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “we’ll all quit, we’ll all be wrapped up in
the great idea.” He took out his handkerchief to blow his nose,
remarking, “The idea of my nose.” I approached him. “Don’t
interfere,” he cried, “I’m off with the great idea.”
I began to descend the stairs. When half way down I stopped to
listen. He was still a monomaniac. Had he substituted the word
thought or theory or conception or notion or belief or opinion or
supposition or hypothesis or syllogism or tentative conjecture, I
would have returned. But as I still heard only the idea of the great
idea, I went to bed.
In the morning his countenance was ashen, which formed a marked
contrast to its extreme redness the evening before. He should have
slept longer, but I thought of the duties to be performed for Judge
Butts, and determined to arouse him, altho I knew my touch would
cast him down from the glorious Halley’s comet to the measly little
flea-bite of an earth, besides jarring the idea of the great idea.
So I shook him, but instead of manifesting anger, he smiled and
extended his hand cordially, as if he had not seen me for a long
time. The effects of the drug had not entirely disappeared, and his
friends at work thought him drunk, and asked with whom he had been
out all night. Mr. Demuth was in first-class spirits, he bubbled over
with idealism, and felt a contempt for all commercial transactions.
He was the American Bernard Shaw, and looked upon the universe
as a joke of the gods. While adding some figures of considerable
importance--as salaries depended upon the results--a superintendent
passed. Mr. Demuth pointed to the column that needed balancing, and
asked, “This is all a joke, isn’t it?” Not appreciating the etiology
of the query, the superintendent nodded and passed on.
* * * * *
One midnight, while preparing to retire, it occurred to Courtenay
Lemon that this was a good time for him to try hasheesh. As I did
not discourage him in the slightest degree, 30 minims were forthwith
swallowed, with the result that the Socialist dramatic critic spent
an unusual night. It must be remarked that over the bed on which
he lay hangs a portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson. For an hour and a
quarter we discussed various topics of mutual interest, such as
decadent poetry, and Marx’s influence on the revolutionary youth of
Russia. The conversation was cut short by the hasheesh-laugh.
It had begun: the flood of laughter was loose, the deluge of mirth
poured forth, the cascade of cachinnation rushed on till it swelled
into a torrent of humor while the waves of snickering and tittering
mingled with the freshets of hilarity and jollity till the whole
flowed into a marvelous Niagara of merriment. What a pity the
audience was so small! What a shame the old humorists could not be
present! How the belly of Aristophanes would have thundered a loud
_papapappax_, how Scarron would have grinned, how Sydney Smith would
have enjoyed it, how Tom Moore would have held his aching sides,
how Rabelais would have raised the rafters with his loud ho-ho-hos!
But as these gentlemen were unavoidably detained elsewhere, I must
testify that it was the funniest show on earth,--so here’s to you,
Courtenay Lemon, you Leyden jar of laughter, charged to the limit.
Never having been a disciple of good old Isaac Pitman, I could
not record all that was said, but here are my notes: “I feel
a satisfaction,” he says, “in seeing Emerson’s picture, as I
always felt like laughing at him.” Rolls on the bed and laughs
uncontrollably. “It makes my face tired,” he explains. In reply to
my question, he answers that he enjoys laughing. Begins to expound
something, but is stopped by a laughing fit. Says he would like to
have his photo taken now, and then laughs immoderately. Says it
doesn’t seem so much like laughing as like letting wind out of a
bag. Says it is worth while staying up to see such a show. Giggles
terrifically. Says “Open the window, as I am using up all the air.”
Laughs loud and long. Strangely enough his laughter begins to sound
exactly like a negro’s, as represented on the stage. He recognizes
this and says “I’se laughin’ now jes’ like a niggah.” He is
extraordinarily comical. From top to bottom his body is shaking with
laughter. He twirls his arms, kicks his feet, and for the first time
I understand what Milton meant when he wrote “the light fantastic
toe.”
“I feel as if any way I put my leg I have to keep it. If I stuck it
in the air and kept it there--wouldn’t that be funny?” Loud laughing.
Imitates the music of a military band. His eyes glisten with
pleasure, his whole countenance is beaming, and he seems infinitely
delighted with himself. “Forward march!” he exclaims. He plays a fife
and beats a drum: Boom! Boom! Boom! Says sternly, “I don’t want this
band to play any patriotic air, not even in my sleep.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you a story. You think I’m a damn fool,
don’t you?” Laughter. “This reminds me of a story.” Laughter. “O
what a damn fool am I!” Laughter. “I’m going to tell that story,”
he says determinedly. Makes several attempts, but it is a difficult
feat, on account of the frequent outbursts of laughter, and because
it is next to impossible for him to concentrate his thoughts. At last
he gets this out: “A man said he hadn’t laughed so much since his
mother-in-law died. Oh, how funny!”
“Mr. Courtenay Lemon: Imitation of laughter. Pretty good, eh?” Makes
a speech, imitates the gestures, and bows as politely as it is
possible for one who is stretched out in bed.
“This would be a good dope to try on a fellow who is accused of
having no sense of humor. Oh, I’m getting funnier every minute.”
“Emerson, O you, you were a kid once too, weren’t you? I don’t
believe you ever were. If I had a rotten egg I’d throw it at you.”
“There’s a blue phosphorescent light in your face,--.”
“I’d rather laugh than vomit any day.” Strikes the bowl which was
placed near him in case the cannabis produced emesis. “But I’m not a
dog and I’ll not return to my vomit. That dog was a damn fool. There
are a lot of things in the Bible that are damn fool things.”
“I’ve been doing all sorts of laughter. Couldn’t you have a system of
prosody, and divide it off into feet like poetry, and have a Laughing
Poet whose contributions would be accepted by the comic papers?”
Whistles and sings and drums rhythmically with his finger-tips on the
bowl.
When I confirm a statement of his by answering “Yes,” he says, “Don’t
be butting in, Victor, this is my show.” Points his finger at me and
laughs. Sensations must be very acute, for while clearing my throat
to say something, but before uttering anything, he hears me and
exclaims. “There you go, butting in again. But don’t be afraid, I’m
not getting pugnacious; it all ends in laughter.” But for a moment
does become quarrelsome.
“I had a good thought, but I don’t know what’s best: to stick to the
thought or stick to the laughter?”
“If Chauncey Depew should be wrecked in the New York Central,
wouldn’t that be funny? Would it be poetic justice? No, it would be
the justice of laughter. Oh, it would be the laughter of the gods!”
He raises himself and swings his arm dramatically. Laughter leaps
from his insides as if it were a geyser spouting up, and rushes from
his lips as if it were a cataract bounding down a boulder.
He theorizes about egoism and Max Stirner, but I can not jot down the
reflection in its entirety.
He says I have no sense of humor to sit there taking notes, instead
of joining him in laughing.
“Of course you understand why I am laughing. But your old cook--if
she hears me, she’ll send for the police.”
“It’s too bad that when I’m having such a good time, I should be
troubled by a dry taste in the mouth. It’s another evidence that the
world was created by a damn fool or a lunatic. There is always some
little thing that interferes.”
Talks sensibly awhile, and then says impatiently: “I want to stop all
this talking, and get to laughing again. I’m not complaining about
the effects from hasheesh, because I consider it worth everything.”
“Oh, tell me, pretty maiden, why can’t a little canary bird whistle
a symphony, for instance, Tchaykovsky’s _Le Pathetique_?” Whistles,
waves his hand fantastically. “As damn little as I know about music,
not having been gifted by nature in that direction”--twists his arms
in a grotesque manner--“I’m able to get a bunch out of Tchaykovsky. I
don’t mean Comrade Tchaykovsky, the revolutionist in Russia, I mean
Peter Ilitch Tchaykovsky. The itch of that Ilitch--it seems like a
personal ailment, it sounds insulting.”
Throws a piece of paper at me, but says, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll break
no bones.”
I ask him to tell the time. He gazes intently at the clock, and says,
“I want to get it exactly on the fraction of a second. But it changes
so quickly, I can’t.” Gives it up in disgust.
Claims a heavy feeling is creeping over him, and wonders if it is due
to increased blood-pressure. “But what am I beginning to talk serious
for? I could keep on laughing for a couple of weeks, except that I
don’t want to keep you up.”
“If Spencer had been more of a sport and had taken some of this
stuff, he would have had material for his essay, _The Physiology
of Laughter_.” To see a man drugged with hasheesh quoting the
profoundest of synthetic philosophers is too much for my gravity, and
for a moment my scream of laughter eclipses even his.
“Ah, I’m beginning to get light again. It’s much nicer to be light
and delicate. To be a filmy butterfly, and float in fancy,”--his face
assumes an expression of poetic beauty, and he speculates whether man
should live a life of beauty or of duty.
“Oh, I’m willing to laugh....” Throws off the blankets and cries,
“Throw off the bonds of all existence!”
I ask him what day it is. “I hope,” says he, with a melodramatic wave
of the hand, “I will express the modest hope, that in accordance
to my wishes, and in conformity to my desires, it is Sunday night!
Sunday night! Sunday night!”
Sits up, looks at me roughishly and laughs.
“I feel a metalliferous touch within me.” “I’d rather have a cramp in
my leg than in my brain. Some people would call this a brain-cramp,
wouldn’t they?” Laughs, kicks up his legs.
“If you got erotic while laughing, wouldn’t it be blasphemy? Worse
than laughing in church.”
“Have no illusions of death yet. I am still in a position to laugh
death in the face, to laugh death in the face, to laugh ...”--and he
proves it. He claps his hands together merrily.
Has a lucid moment, looks at the clock, and says simply and
correctly, “10 to 3.”
Imitates a Frenchman most admirably, accent, gestures, etc.
The door opens, and my father--who has found it impossible to sleep
with a roaring volcano in the house--enters. I ask Mr. Lemon to tell
my father about Chauncey Depew and the Grand Central. Mr. Lemon is
highly pleased, and repeats the story with intense zest. He enlarges
it, and claims Depew has got Elbert Hubbard beat as a hypocrite. He
says all who believe Depew deserves to be killed should signify it
by saying Aye, and then he himself, as if he were a whole assembly,
shouts out, Aye! Aye! Aye! “The Ayes have it,” he announces with the
air of a man who has just won an important victory. My father and I
laugh heartily. There is no limit to Mr. Lemon’s happiness. “That’s
right,” he says, “it’s good, take it down, old man.”
He cannot bear a moment’s abstinence from laughter. “Cast aside
all irrelevant hypotheses, and get to the laughing. I proclaim the
supremacy of the laugh, laughter inextinguishable, laughter eternal,
the divine laughter of the gods.”
My father leaves the room. “Everything has a comic element if you
look at it right. It seemed to me that your father went down into the
cellar because he couldn’t sleep on account of my damn foolishness.”
He wallows in amusement, but at the same time expresses sincere
regret that he is preventing my father and me from sleeping, and says
next time he will take hasheesh in the daytime.
My father re-enters, and desires to feel his pulse. At first Mr.
Lemon objects vehemently to being touched, but then smiles the
sweetest of smiles, and with the demeanor of a martyred Bruno
marching to the stake, stretches forth his hand, saying, “In the
interests of science I am willing.” But after a few seconds Mr. Lemon
pulls his hand impatiently away, and exclaims angrily, “You’ve been
holding it half an hour.” His pulse is about 100.
“Come on in, the hasheesh is fine! You laugh and laugh and laugh and
laugh like an imbecile. Who can laugh in more ways than me? Not any
fellow that I can see.”
Begins to philosophize about savages, but loses the thread of his
thoughts. I remind him what he was talking about; he thinks a moment,
taps his forehead significantly, and says, “There was a laugh there
before, and now I’ve lost it.”
“Every tick of the clock is another instant that you’re wasting time
over this damn foolishness.”
“Laughter is indisputable and for its own sake. I proclaim the laugh
for the laugh’s sake.” The English tongue is insufficient for him; he
coins words of his own: “Laughfinity!” he shouts. “Laughinosity!” he
screams. “The whole world is a blooming joke.”
“Which is best,” he asks innocently, “the Laughing Goddess, or the
Goddess of Laughter?” “The Laughing Goddess,” answers my father.
Exultation shines thru the dilated pupils of the questioner, as he
responds, “I knew I would catch you. The Laughing Goddess reminds you
by the association of ideas of the laughing hyena, and then instead
of being the goddess presiding over the divine function of laughter,
she becomes a laughing stock.”
I ask him something about figures. “Figures,” he answers, “are
intellectually beneath me. In short, I would never be a great
mathematician. Yet I appreciate the metaphysics of mathematics. I
adore, I prostrate myself before mathematics as long as there are no
figures in it.” Hearing our laughter, he explains, “Yet this isn’t so
foolish as it seems. Up to a certain point in geometry there are no
figures.”
“I would have talked more sensibly if Emerson had not been there.”
Bangs his legs against the edge of the bed; my father asks him if he
hurt himself. “Not on a material plane; it was a psychic jar of which
you cannot conceive.”
Speaks in a declamatory tone: “I am all the time on the borderline
between Science and Folly. Which god shall ye follow, young man?”
My father tells him he can stop laughing if he wishes. “No, sir,”
comes the emphatic response, “not if you lived in my world. It is a
categorical imperative in the world of hasheesh: Thou shalt laugh.”
It is already four o’clock in the morning. I am loath to leave this
frolicsome dynamo of blithesomeness, this continuous current of
good-cheer, this generator of joyousness, but there is a hard day’s
work before me and I need a little sleep, so with a last look at his
Mirthful Majesty, I leave him alone in his glory and his giggles.
Four hours later I peep in. The intellectual merry-andrew who
criticizes the Concord Transcendentalist and juggles philosophic
conceptions even under the effects of dope, is motionless. Lassitude
has usurped the throne of laughter.
I cannot tell what effect the reading of this case will produce on
others, but in me it awakens such risibility that I hope never to
think of it on an occasion when silence or solemnity is enjoined;
for if I do, there is danger of my being ejected as unceremoniously
as was Washington Irving on the day he laughed at _The Art of Book
Making_, in the grave sanctuary of the British Museum.
There yet remains my own case. On March 4th, 1910, I came home,
feeling very tired. I found that some cannabis indica which I had
expected had arrived. After supper, while finishing up an article, I
began to debate with myself whether I should join the hasheesh-eaters
that night. The argument ended in my taking 20 minims at 9 o’clock.
I was alone in the room, and no one was aware that I had yielded to
temptation. An hour later I wrote in my memoranda book: Absolutely
no effect. At 10.30, I completed my article, and entered this note:
No effect at all from the hemp. By this time I was exhausted, and
being convinced that the hasheesh would not act, I went to bed in
disappointment. I fell asleep immediately.
I hear music. There is something strange about this music. I have
not heard such music before. The anthem is far away, but in its very
faintness there is a lure. In the soft surge and swell of the minor
notes there breathes a harmony that ravishes the sense of sound.
A resonant organ, with a stop of sapphire and a diapason of opal,
diffuses endless octaves from star to star. All the moon-beams form
strings to vibrate the perfect pitch, and this entrancing unison is
poured into my enchanted ears. Under such a spell, who can remain in
a bed? The magic of that melody bewitches my soul. I begin to rise
horizontally from my couch. No walls impede my progress, and I float
into the outside air. Sweeter and sweeter grows the music, it bears
me higher and higher, and I float in tune with the infinite--under
the turquoise heavens where globules of mercury are glittering.
I become an unhindered wanderer thru unending space. No air-ship
can go here, I say. I am astonished at the vastness of infinity. I
always knew it was large, I argue, but I never dreamt it was as huge
as this. I desire to know how fast I am floating thru the air, and I
calculate that it must be about a billion miles a second.
I am transported to wonderland. I walk in streets where gold is dirt,
and I have no desire to gather it. I wonder whether it is worth while
to explore the canals of Mars, or rock myself on the rings of Saturn,
but before I can decide, a thousand other fancies enter my excited
brain.
I wish to see if I can concentrate my mind sufficiently to recite
something, and I succeed in correctly quoting this stanza from a
favorite poem which I am perpetually re-reading:
“Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.”
It occurs to me that it is high honor for Tennyson to have his poetry
quoted in heaven.
I turn, I twist, I twirl. I melt, I fade, I dissolve. No diaphanous
cloud is so light and airy as I. I admire the ease with which I
float. My gracefulness fills me with delight. My body is not subject
to the law of gravitation. I sail dreamily along, lost in exquisite
intoxication.
New scenes of wonder continually unravel themselves before my
astonished eyes. I say to myself that if I could only record one
one-thousandth of the ideas which come to me every second, I would be
considered a greater poet than Milton.
I am on the top of a high mountain-peak. I am alone--only the
romantic night envelops me. From a distant valley I hear the gentle
tinkling of cow-bells. I float downwards, and find immense fields
in which peacock’s tails are growing. They wave slowly, to better
exhibit their dazzling ocelli, and I revel in the gorgeous colors. I
pass over mountains and I sail over seas. I am the monarch of the air.
I hear the songs of women. Thousands of maidens pass near me, they
bend their bodies in the most charming curves, and scatter beautiful
flowers in my fragrant path. Some faces are strange, some I knew on
earth, but all are lovely. They smile, and sing and dance. Their bare
feet glorify the firmament. It is more than flesh can stand. I grow
sensual unto satyriasis. The aphrodisiac effect is astonishing in its
intensity. I enjoy all the women of the world. I pursue countless
maidens thru the confines of heaven. A delicious warmth suffuses my
whole body. Hot and blissful I float thru the universe, consumed
with a resistless passion. And in the midst of this unexampled and
unexpected orgy, I think of the case reported by the German Dr.
Reidel, about a drug-clerk who took a huge dose of hasheesh to enjoy
voluptuous visions, but who heard not even the rustle of Aphrodite’s
garment, and I laugh at him in scorn and derision.
I sigh deeply, open my eyes, and find myself sitting with one foot
in bed, and the other on my desk. I am bathed in warm sweat which is
pleasant. But my head aches, and there is a feeling in my stomach
which I recognize and detest. It is nausea. I pull the basket near
me, and await the inevitable result. At the same time I feel like
begging for mercy, for I have traveled so far and so long, and I am
tired beyond limit, and I need a rest. The fatal moment approaches,
and I lower my head for the easier deposition of the rising burden.
And my head seems monstrously huge, and weighted with lead. At last
the deed is done, and I lean back on the pillow.
I hear my sister come home from the opera. I wish to call her. My
sister’s name is Ellen. I try to say it, but I cannot. The effort
is too much. I sigh in despair. It occurs to me that I may achieve
better results if I compromise on Nell, as this contains one syllable
instead of two. Again I am defeated. I am too weary to exert myself
to any extent, but I am determined. I make up my mind to collect all
my strength, and call out: Nell. The result is a fizzle. No sound
issues from my lips. My lips do not move. I give it up. My head falls
on my breast, utterly exhausted and devoid of all energy.
Again my brain teems. Again I hear that high and heavenly harmony,
again I float to the outposts of the universe and beyond, again I see
the dancing maidens with their soft yielding bodies, white and warm.
I am excited unto ecstasy. I feel myself a brother to the Oriental,
for the same drug which gives him joy is now acting on me. I am
conscious all the time, and I say to myself in a knowing way with
a suspicion of a smile: All these visions because of 20 minims of
cannabis indica. My only regret is that the trances are ceaseless. I
wish respite, but for answer I find myself floating over an immense
ocean. Then the vision grows so wondrous, that body and soul I give
myself up to it, and I taste the fabled joys of paradise. Ah, what
this night is worth!
The music fades, the beauteous girls are gone, and I float no more.
But the black rubber covering of my typewriter glows like a chunk
of yellow phosphorus. By one door stands a skeleton with a luminous
abdomen and brandishes a wooden sword. By the other door a little
red devil keeps guard. I open my eyes wide, I close them tight, but
these spectres will not vanish. I know they are not real, I know I
see them because I took hasheesh, but they annoy me nevertheless. I
become uncomfortable, even frightened. I make a superhuman effort,
and succeed in getting up and lighting the gas. It is two o’clock.
Everything is the way it should be, except that in the basket I
notice the remains of an orange--somewhat the worse for wear.
I feel relieved, and fall asleep. Something is handling me, and I
start in fright. I open my eyes and see my father. He has returned
from a meeting at the Academy of Medicine, and surprised at seeing
a light in my room at such a time, has entered. He surmises what
I have done, and is anxious to know what quantity I have taken. I
should have answered, with a wink, _quantum sufficit_, but I have no
inclination for conversation; on hearing the question repeated, I
answer, “Twenty minims.” He tells me I look as pale as a ghost, and
brings me a glass of water. I drink it, become quite normal, and
thus ends the most wonderful night of my existence.
In the morning my capacity for happiness is considerably increased. I
have an excellent appetite, the coffee I sip is nectar, and the white
bread ambrosia. I take my camera, and walk to Central Park. It is a
glorious day. Everyone I meet is idealized. The lake never looked so
placid before. I enter the hot-houses, and a gaudy-colored insect
buzzing among the lovely flowers fills me with joy. I am too languid
to take any pictures; to set the focus, to use the proper stop, to
locate the image, to press the bulb--all these seem herculean feats
which I dare not even attempt. But I walk and walk, without apparent
effort, and my mind eagerly dwells on the brilliant pageantry of the
night before. I do not wish to forget my frenzied nocturnal revelry
upon the vast dome of the broad blue heavens. I wish to remember
forever, the floating, the mercury-globules, the peacock-feathers,
the colors, the music, the women. In memory I enjoy the carnival all
over again.
“For the brave Meiamoun,” writes Theophile Gautier, “Cleopatra
danced; she was apparelled in a robe of green, open at either
side; castanets were attached to her alabaster hands.... Poised on
the pink tips of her little feet, she approached swiftly to graze
his forehead with a kiss; then she recommenced her wondrous art,
and flitted around him, now backward-leaning, with head reversed,
eyes half-closed, arms lifelessly relaxed, locks uncurled and
loose-hanging like a bacchante of Mount Maenalus; now again active,
animated, laughing, fluttering, more tireless and capricious in her
movements than the pilfering bee. Heart-consuming love, sensual
pleasure, burning passion, youth inexhaustible and ever-fresh, the
promise of bliss to come--she expressed all.... The modest stars had
ceased to contemplate the scene; their golden eyes could not endure
such a spectacle; the heaven itself was blotted out, and a dome of
flaming vapor covered the hall.”
But for me a thousand Cleopatras caroused--and did not present
me a vase of poison to drain at a draught. Again I repeated to
myself: “And all these charming miracles because of 20 minims of
_Fluidextractum Cannabis Indicæ_, U. S. P.”
By the afternoon I had so far recovered as to be able to concentrate
my mind on technical studies. I will not attempt to interpret my
visions psychologically, but I wish to refer to one aspect. Spencer,
in _Principles of Psychology_, mentions hasheesh as possessing the
power of reviving ideas. I found this to be the case. I spoke about
air-ships because there had been a discussion about them at supper;
I quoted from Tennyson’s _Maud_ because I had been re-reading it;
I saw mercury-globules in the heavens because that same day I had
worked with mercury in preparing mercurial plaster; and I saw the
peacock-tails because a couple of days previous I had been at the
Museum of Natural History and had closely observed a magnificent
specimen. I cannot account for the women.
All poets--with the possible exception of Margaret Sangster--have
celebrated Alcohol, while Rudyard Kipling has gone so far as to
solemnize delirium tremens; B. V. has glorified Nicotine; DeQuincy
has immortalized Opium; Murger is full of praise for Caffeine; Dumas
in _Monte Cristo_ has apotheosized Hasheesh, Gautier has vivified
it in _Club des Hachichins_, Baudelaire has panegyrized it in
_Artificial Paradises_, but as few American pens have done so, I have
taken it upon myself to write a sonnet to the most interesting plant
that blooms:
Near Punjab and Pab, in Sutlej and Sind,
Where the cobras-di-capello abound,
Where the poppy, palm and the tamarind,
With cummin and ginger festoon the ground--
And the capsicum fields are all abloom,
From the hills above to the vales below,
Entrancing the air with a rich perfume,
There too does the greenish Cannabis grow:
Inflaming the blood with the living fire,
Till the burning joys like the eagles rise,
And the pulses throb with a strange desire,
While passion awakes with a wild surprise:--
O to eat that drug, and to dream all day,
Of the maids that live by the Bengal Bay!
APPENDIX
Mr. Courtenay Lemon has written the following memorandum of the
subjective features of his experience:
The first symptom which told me that the drug was beginning to
take effect was a feeling of extreme lightness. I seemed to be
hollowing out inside, in some magical manner, until I became a mere
shell, ready to float away into space. This was soon succeeded,
in one of the breathless intervals of my prodigious laughter, by
a diametrically opposite sensation of extreme solidity and leaden
weight. It seemed to me that I had changed into metal of some sort.
There was a metallic taste in my mouth; in some inexplicable way
the surfaces of my body seemed to communicate to my consciousness a
metalliferous feeling; and I imagined that if struck I would give
forth a metallic ring. This heavy and metallic feeling travelled
rapidly upwards from the feet to the chest, where it stopped, leaving
my head free for the issuance of the storms of laughter. Most of
the time my arms and legs seemed to be so leaden that it required
Herculean effort to move them, but under any special stimulus, such
as the entrance of a third person, the vagrant conception of a
new idea, or an unusually hearty fit of laughing, this feeling of
unliftable heaviness in the limbs and torso would be forgotten and I
would move freely, waving my arms with great vigor and enthusiasm.
Thruout the experiment I experienced a peculiar double consciousness.
I was perfectly aware that my laughter, etc., was the result of
having taken the drug, yet I was powerless to stop it, nor did I
care to do so, for I enjoyed it as thoroly as if it had arisen from
natural causes. In the same way the extension of the sense of time
induced by the drug was in itself indubitable and as cogent as any
normal evidence of the senses, yet I remained able to convince myself
at any moment by reflection that my sense of time was fallacious.
I divided these impressions into hasheesh-time and real time. But
in their alternations, so rapid as to seem simultaneous, both these
standards of time seemed equally valid. For instance, once or twice
when my friend spoke of something I had said a second before, I was
impatient and replied: “What do you want to go back to that for? That
was a long time ago. What’s the use of going back into the past?”
At the next moment, however, I would recognize, purely as a matter
of logic, that he was replying to the sentence before the last that
I had uttered, and would thus realize that the remark to which he
referred was separated from the present only by a moment’s interval.
I did not, however, at any time on this occasion, attain the state
sometimes reached in the second stage of hasheesh intoxication in
which mere time disappears in an eternity wherein ages rush by like
ephemera; nor did I experience any magnification of the sense of
space, my experiences in regard to such extensions being confined to
an intermittent multiplication of the sense of time.
When my laughter began it seemed for an instant to be mechanical, as
if produced by some external power which forced air in and out of
my lungs; it seemed for an instant to proceed from the body rather
than from the mind; to be, in its inception, merely physical laughter
without a corresponding psychic state of amusement. But this was only
momentary. After the first few moments I enjoyed laughing immensely.
I felt an inclination to joke as well as to laugh, and I remember
saying: “I am going to have some reason for this laughing, so I will
tell a story; if I have to laugh anyway, I’m going to supply good
reasons for doing so, as it would be idiotic to laugh about nothing.”
I thereupon proceeded to relate an anecdote. Altho I knew that my
condition was the result of the drug, I was nevertheless filled with
a genuine sense of profound hilarity, an eager desire to impart
similar merriment to others, and a feeling of immense geniality and
mirth, accompanied by sentiments of the most expansive good-will.
Against the effects of the drug, much as I enjoyed and yielded to
it, there was opposed a preconceived intention. I had determined
to tell my friend Victor Robinson, who was taking notes of my
condition, just how I felt; had determined to supply as much data
as possible in regard to my sensations. The result was that I
repeatedly summoned all the rational energy that remained to me, and
fought desperately to express the thoughts that came to me, whether
ridiculous or analytical. Sometimes when I felt myself slipping
away again into laughter or dreaminess I summoned all my strength
to say what I had in mind, and would lose the thread of my thought
and could not remember what I wanted to say, but would return to it
again and again with the utmost determination and tenacity until I
succeeded in saying what I wished to--sometimes an observation about
my sensations, often only a jest about my condition. I believe that
this acted as a great resistant to the effect of the drug. The energy
of the drug was dissipated, I think, in overcoming my will to observe
and analyze my sensations, and it was probably for this reason that
I did not pass very far on this occasion into the second stage
in which laughter gives place to grandiose visions and charming
hallucinations.
After my friend Victor and his father turned out the light and left
the room, my laughter gradually subsided into a few final gurgles of
ineffable mirth and benevolence, and after a period of the amorous
visions sometimes induced by this philtre from the land of harems,
I fell into a sound sleep after my three hours of continuous and
exhausting laughter.
I awoke next morning after seven hours sleep, with a ravenous
appetite, which I think was probably as much due to the great
expenditure of energy in laughing as to any direct effect of the drug
itself. I was also very thirsty and my skin was parched and burning.
Altho I immediately dressed and went down to breakfast, I felt very
drowsy and disinclined to physical exertion or mental concentration.
And while no longer given to causeless laughter, I felt a lingering
merriment and was easily moved to chuckling. I slept several hours in
the afternoon and after dinner I slept all evening, awaking at 11
P. M., when I arose feeling very much refreshed and entirely normal,
and went out to get another meal, being still hungry. I should say
that the immediate after-effect, the reaction from the stimulation
of hasheesh, is not much greater, except for the drowsiness, than
that following the common or beer garden variety of intoxication. My
memory of what I said and did while under the hasheesh was complete
and accurate.
Transcriber’s Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.
Obsolete and alternative spellings were retained. Nine misspelled
words were corrected; a missing accent was added to “Médecine;” one
instance of “DeMuth” was changed to Demuth.
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