Page images
PDF
EPUB

many evidences against such reduction. Neither are there any local signs from which an unequivocal opinion can be formed.

It is probable, that if the parts strangulated remain in the neighbourhood of the ring, a local and obscurely felt tumour, painful over a circumscribed space, may be discovered upon examination, especially after opening the inguinal canal. Thus may be afforded some grounds for suspecting the true nature of the case, yet not sufficiently decisive to render a section of the peritoneum anything more or less than a mere speculative proceeding, with all the contingencies of its doing good or harm to the patient's prospects of recovery.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

MEDICINAL PROPERTIES

OF THE

CANNABIS SATIVA OF INDIA.

BY JOHN CLENDINNING, M.D., F.R.S.,

PHYSICIAN TO THE ST. MARYLEBONE INFIRMARY.

READ MAY 9TH, 1843.

LOOKING at disease abstractedly, I should say that no indications exceed in importance the two following, viz.:

1. The alleviation of acute pain, whether neuralgic, spasmodic, or inflammatory, in its origin; and

2. The securing adequate daily rest in sleep by procuring, artificially if necessary, a suspension at least of any morbid actions or conditions that might militate against refreshing repose. Almost all the suffering, and great part of the danger, of sickness may be referred to uneasy sensations of one sort or other, the irritated nervous tissues re-acting throughout the economy on the nutrient functions,

deranging the elementary affinities in the blood, undermining the organic powers, and ultimately ruining the general health. Looking again at disease as we see it in clinical practice, there are no medicinal substances of more interest or importance in its treatment than such as are fitted to fulfil these two indications. In the records of medicine there are few results of professional research more striking than the beneficial effects obtained from opium in various diseases.

Satisfactory effects have also been obtained from other agents in our pharmacopoeia, of the narcotic class, especially henbane, camphor, prussic acid, belladonna, aconite, &c., in allaying neuralgic pain, or checking spasm, or procuring sleep. But of all our direct anodynes, antispasmodics and hypnotics, opium is undoubtedly that one popularly known in England as the principal, the most powerful, the most certain, and in a word as fairly worth at least all the rest.

But the use of opium has many inconveniences that limit its application very much, so that in cases standing greatly in need of that ease and repose which, under favourable circumstances, opium is so well calculated to yield, we are not unfrequently prevented from employing it. Its tendency is to produce torpor in the stomach and bowels, and to stop the digestive process and the peristaltic actions; and thus to cause anorexia, constipation and active indigestion; it deranges the hepatic and renal secretions as well as those of the mucous linings of the

whole alimentary canal; it tends strongly to produce headache, vertigo and general discomfort after the cessation of its soporific effects; and these and other inconveniences are of frequent occurrence, and in many cases extremely difficult to obviate in any other way than by abandoning the medicine altogether.

The vast importance of quietude and sleep as restoratives in all grave diseases, whether acute or chronic; the frequent intolerance of opium in individual cases, especially in nervous females, and dyspeptic subjects of either sex; and the inexpediency of its use in a variety of circumstances where repose the most complete is desirable, these considerations warrant the assertion, that the addition to our materia medica, of any remedy possessing to any considerable extent the virtues without the defects of opium, would be an advantage not easily overrated. Now such an agent I suspect we possess in the Extract. Cannabis Indicæ. This agent seems, like opium, to have been known to the Orientals, and to have been in use as an article of voluptuous excitement amongst the Hindoos for a long series of ages. It was first scientifically tested, so far as I know, by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, of the Medical College, Calcutta ; that gentleman was also the first, I believe, to lay the results of accurate observation before the public. The churrus (or resinous extract of the gunjah or dried Indian hemp) was found by Dr. O'Shaughnessy to possess very striking powers as an antispasmodic, as a nervine stimulant, and as an

anodyne and hypnotic, and in some respects to excel opium in virtue, especially as an antispasmodic in tetanus, &c. He also observed that it was wholly, or for the most part, free from the deranging action on the stomach and bowels that so limits the utility of opium. Mr. Ley has, I believe the first in this country, published several interesting facts confirmatory of the results of Dr. O'Shaughnessy's experiments and observations; and other gentlemen, possessed of the requisite opportunities, are very probably engaged in clinical investigation of the subject. My attention was called to it only within the last three months, during which I have taken advantage of numerous opportunities of testing the new remedy. The following cases are, I think, favourable, and yet fair, samples of my experience with it.

CASE I.

The first subject nearly on which I made trial of the new remedy was a medical man of forty-four ; he has taken it on several occasions: on the first he had no other object than testing its physiological effects, and observing, as far as he could, its mode of operation. At bed-time, being in good health, he took 12 minims of Squire's tincture of Indian hemp, which are equivalent to 1 grain of the extract. In a few minutes he perceived that slight sense of confusion and fullness in the head, with some extra activity in the action of the carotid arteries, which diffusible narcotic stimuli usually produce; and in

« PreviousContinue »