Science Cannabis

Medical Uses of Marijuana—Fact or Fantasy 129in its effects; but may sometimes be preferably employed, when opium iscontraindicated by its nauseating or constipating effects, or its disposition tocause headache, and to check the bronchial secretion. The complaints towhich it has been specially recommended are neuralgia, gout, tetanus,hydrophobia, epidemic cholera, convulsions, chorea, hysteria, mental depression,insanity, and uterine hemorrhage. Dr. Alexander Christison, ofEdinburgh, has found it to have the property of hastening and increasingthe contractions of the uterus in delivery, and has employed it with advantagefor this purpose. It acts very quickly, and without anesthetic effect. Itappears, however, to exert this influence only in a certain proportion ofcases.(Wood and Bache, 1854)Although cannabis continued to attract the interest of psychiatrists,cannabis did not become widely popular with American doctors. Duringthe Civil War it was used to treat diarrhea and dysentery among thesoldiers, but as a medicine cannabis had too many shortcomings. As Britishdoctors had found, the potency of commercial preparations variedfrom pharmacist to pharmacist as there was no means of standardizingthe preparations for their content of the active drug. What proved to bean effective dose when using material from one supplier would eitherhave no noticeable effects or would produce unpleasant intoxicationwhen the same amount was obtained from a different supplier. In addition,the drug was not water soluble and so unlike morphine, which wasthen becoming available, cannabis could not be given by injection. Thehypodermic syringe was invented in the late nineteenth Century and wasimmediately popular with doctors and patients for administering instantremedies. There is a certain mystique associated with ritual of an injection—eventoday many Japanese patients prefer their medicines to beadministered in this way. Cannabis had to be given by mouth and tooksome time to take effect. The doctor might have to remain with hispatient for more than an hour after giving the drug, in order to makesure not only that it was having the desired effect but also that the dosagehad not been too high.A succinct and perceptive summary of the rise and fall of cannabisin nineteenth century medicine is given by Walton (1938, p. 152):