Part 3

=℞= 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!”