Science Cannabis

Medical Uses of Marijuana—Fact or Fantasy 125On January 7, 1832 he presented his data to the Central Board of Healthin London and published them immediately thereafter in a brilliant monograph.This delightful book deserves a small place among medicine's classicsas a demonstration of O'Shaugnessey's command of the literature, hisclear and incisive logic, and his astonishing grasp of acid-base physiology.He related the functions of carbon dioxide, oxygen and the "colouringmatter of the blood," and finally showed the essential elements of thechemical pathology of cholera. In his concluding remarks he stated, "Iwould not hesitate to inject some ounces of warm water into the veins. Iwould also without apprehension dissolve in that water the mild innocuoussalts . . . which in cholera are deficient.O'Shaugnessey himself never put these ideas to the test, but theywere rapidly taken up by physicians and found to be effective. Cholerawas a common and deadly infectious disease in nineteenth century citiesthat lacked modern sanitation systems. His ideas form the basis of thefluid replacement therapy, which to this day is the basis of treatment forthe catastrophic loss of salts and water from the blood, which is a keyfeature of cholera and other diseases that induce severe diarrhea.On moving to India in 1833 O'Shaugnessey began his studies ofcannabis described above. In 1841, he published an important textbookof chemistry and was made professor of chemistry at the Medical Collegein Calcutta and 2 years later, at the remarkably young age of 34 he waselected a Fellow of the Royal Society in London.His career then took another remarkable tack. In the late 1830s heexperimented with telegraphy (for review see Bridge, 1998). At his ownexpense he constructed an experimental system using more than 30miles of wire in the botanical gardens in Calcutta and devised practicalmethods for transmitting signals:O'Shaugnessey tried for years to introduce the electric telegraph into Indiabut could raise little enthusiasm until 1847, when he captured the interestof the great "proconsul" (or despot, depending on one's source of information),Lord Dalhousie. When he was promoted to surgeon in the IndianMedical Service medicine was no longer his principal concern. He obtaineda commission from Dalhousie to lay down an experimental telegraphline between Calcutta and Kedjeree at the mouth of the Hooghly