Medicine - Drugs > Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894-1895 > Volume III
(233) Volume 3, Page 229
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REPORT BY DR. GEORGE WATT, M.B., C.M., C.I.E. 229
rows of cells, thus
producing intercellular chambers of considerable length. A point
of
importance that may be here specially mentioned is the fact that
excretary deposits of the
nature here discussed are made from the very earliest period of
individual life; in other
words, anterior to the formation of even vascular tissue and
consequently long before the
stage at which flowers and fruits are formed.
But there are further
purely epidermal receptacles of secretion quite distinct from
those
discussed above. To this class belongs, according to the commonly
accepted views, the
deposits of the narcotic in the hemp plant. Epidermal receptacles
are generally designated
as glands, but in the vast majority of cases these contain only
ethereal oils with resins
dissolved in them. And there are two classes of
glands—those located
just below the
epidermis and those above it; the latter are mostly hairs or
stings. The viscid condition
of the surface of many leaves is due to epidermal glands, and in
some cases the fluid contents
of such glands possess a characteristic odour peculiar to the
species. The formation of
glands and the nature of their contents are essentially different
from the corresponding
features detailed above regarding the laticiferous system and its
excretary deposits, and
this distinction is of vital importance. Glands originate from a
single mother-cell which
undergoes division until a rounded mass of tissue is produced, the
cells of which are smaller
than those of the closely-fitting surrounding tissue, and they
contain a peculiar form of
protoplasm. Later on the central cells of this special structure
become absorbed, thus
forming a cavity which contains the solution of the cells and their
contents, the secretionary
product of glands. It is thus doubtful how far the contents of
glands can be called excretary
deposits. They are more frequently specific secretions formed for a
definite purpose in the
life history of the plant. Such, while discussing the glands of the
hop, "says the so-called
Hashish arises similarly in the long-stalked many-celled capitate
hairs of the female plant
of the Indian hemp." But I suspect that in the plant as met with in
India there is some-
thing more than this, and that microscopical investigations are
likely to reveal special
developments by which the resinous narcotic has assumed the
character of an excretary
discharge. At all events the formation of the narcotic is not, so
far as my observation
goes, confined to the female plant. But I have already qualified my
opinions as those
based on casual observation, and I need therefore only add that the
above review of the most
recently published theory of the deposition, permanently or
temporarily, of various chemical
substances within the tissues of plants has been given with the
object of showing the
possibility of there existing in Cannabis some structural
modifications by which the narco-
tic is deposited within the leaves of one form (the
bhang-yielding plant); appears on
the surface of the female flowering-tops (especially if
fecundation be prevented) of another,
the ganja plant; and exudes from the surface of the leaves,
stems and fruits of still a
third—the charas
plant. And I would even venture to go further and suggest
that
when the chemistry of the substance is fully worked out it will be
found to vary quite as
greatly in these three forms of Cannabis sativa as does the
inspissated laticiferous fluid
(opium) of the various cultivated races of Paparer
somniferum. Such variation might
account for the reputed different properties of bhang, ganja and
charas. In concluding
this section of my remarks, therefore, I would only add, by way of
recapitulation, that if the
narcotic of Indian hemp (as currently believed) be purely and
simply a glandular secre-
tion, it differs as widely from opium botanically as it does
chemically. It must in that
case be a substance unconnected with the metabolism of the growing
plant, and its reputed
formation in association with imperfect fecundity might be
characterised as very possibly
a pure hallucination of ignorant cultivators.
3. Accepting the main
contention here advanced that, as in the case of all other
Indian crops, so with Cannabis sativa, there are cultivated
races, we obtain at once a
solution of the remarkable fact of one and the same plant
botanically yielding in one part
of India one product, in another a widely different article. We are
enabled also to under-
stand why it should alike luxuriate on the tropical plains and on
the Alpine slopes.
But this view of the case urges, as of primary importance, that
early attention be given
to the systematic study of the various forms, so that we may be
saved from the error of
arousing false expectations or of doing injury to one cultivator
because, perchance, of the
pernicious nature of the product of another's labours. When Dr.
Stocks wrote in 1848
that "the plant grows well in Sind, and if it ever should be found
advantageous (politi-
cally or financially) to grow hemp for its fibre, then Sind would
be a very proper climate,"
he was reasoning very possibly from insufficient data. Because
Cannabis sativa (in one of
its charas-yielding states), flourishes in Sind, it by no means
follows that accordingly the
fibre-yielding plant may be substituted. On the contrary, we now
know that by far the
major portion of the narcotic-yielding races of the plant form no
marketable fibre in
their stems, and further that it is but rarely the case that both
series of races (narcotic
and fibre) can be grown in the same locality. So far as works
published in Europe are
concerned, it may in all fairness be said that the error has been
very frequently made of
regarding the Garhwal and Kumaon regions of fibre production as the
total areas of
Indian hemp cultivation in this country (e.g., Cyclopœdia of
India and the Encyclopœdia
Britannica), or on the other hand of mistaking the extensive
areas of narcotic production
as possible regions of the supply of a fibre which is sometimes
spoken of as at present
being allowed to run to waste. Errors of this nature would, as I
take it, be quite as serious,
if not more so, than the omission to demarcate the tracts of
country over which each
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