“The fresh herb of the hemp has a very powerful and unpleasant narcotic smell, and is used in the East in combination with opium in the preparation of intoxicating potions, &c. It is probable that the _nepenthe_ of the ancients was prepared from the leaves of this plant. Many physicians, Hahnemann among them, prescribe the vinous extract in various nervous disorders, where opium and hyoscyamus used to be employed, being less heating and devoid of bitterness.”[3] No information as to the _medicinal_ effects of hemp exists in the standard works on materia medica, to which I have access. Soubeiran, Feé, Merat and de Lens, in their admirable dictionary; Chevalier and Richard, Roques (Phytographie Medicale); Ratier and Henry (Pharmacopeé Française); and the Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, are all equally silent on the subject. In “Ainslie’s Materia Indica,” 2nd vol., we find three notices of this plant and its preparations. At page 39 “banghie” (_Tamul_), with the Persian and Hindee synonymes of “beng” and “subjee,” is described as an intoxicating liquor prepared with the leaves of the _gunjah_ or hemp plant. Under the head “_gunjah_,” Ainslie gives numerous synonymes, and tells us that the leaves are sometimes prescribed in cases of diarrhœa; and in conjunction with turmeric, onions, and warm gingilie oil, are made into an unction for painful protruded piles. Dr. Ainslie also gives a brief view of the popular uses and botanical characters of the plant. _Majoon_, lastly, is described by Dr. Ainslie, page 176, as a preparation of sugar, milk, ghee, poppy seeds, flowers of the datura, powder of nux vomica, and sugar. The true _majoon_, however, as prepared in Bengal, contains neither datura nor nux vomica. I have already described the process by which it has been manufactured before me. In the “Journal de Pharmacie,” the most complete magazine in existence on all pharmaceutical subjects, we find hemp noticed in several volumes. In the “Bulletin de Pharmacie,” t. V.A. 1810, p. 400, we find it briefly described by M. Rouyer, apothecary to Napoleon, and member of the Egyptian scientific commission, in a paper on the popular remedies of Egypt. With the leaves and tops, he tells us, collected before ripening, the Egyptians prepare a conserve, which serves as the base of the _berch_, the _diasmouk_, and the _bernaouy_. Hemp leaves reduced to powder, and incorporated with honey or stirred with water, constitute the _berch_ of the poor classes. The same work also (Bulletin, vol. i., p. 523, A. 1809) contains a very brief notice of the intoxicating preparations of hemp, read by M. De Sacy before the Institute of France, in July, 1809. M. De Sacy’s subsequent analysis of Makrizi, of which I have given an outline, is, however, much more copious in details than the article in the Bulletin.