Part 2
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.”