194 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [APP.
considerable period not
long before the close of the experiment the animal had been subject
to
an attack of dysentery, which would alone have been sufficient to
occasion considerable loss of
weight.
On laying the body open
the phenomenon which at once attracted attention as unlike
any
ordinarily present in caged monkeys, was the great amount of fat
accumulated in the
omentum, the mesentery and the visceral and parietal pericardium.
This was specially note-
worthy in connection with the markedly diminished ingestion of food
which had characterised
the subject of the experiment during the greater part of its
course, and with the coincident
considerable reduction in body-weight which had
occurred.
The body generally
appeared to be fairly well-nourished and a considerable amount
of
subcutaneous fat was present.
The lungs were quite
exceptionally healthy for a caged monkey; neither of them being
in
the least degree adherent to the thoracic walls, the left one being
apparently perfectly
healthy, and the right merely showing a few patches of deep
congestion towards the
base.
Under the influence of
the osmic acid contained in the fixing solution in which
specimens
of it were immersed, the muscular tissue of the heart showed
unequivocal signs of the
presence of a certain amount of interstitial fat. Whether, however,
these were due to true
fatty degeneration of the muscular elements proper, or, as is more
probably the case, to mere
fatty accumulation in the connective tissue, must remain an open
question until the detailed
histological examination of the tissues has been carried
out.
The liver, spleen and
pancreas appeared to be perfectly normal, save that, as in
the
case of the cardiac muscle, a slight excess of interstitial fat
made its appearance under the
influence of osmic acid.
The kidneys, the stomach,
the large and small intestines and the cerebro-spinal
nervous
centres were all apparently
perfectly healthy.
The only peculiar
features in the body, then, which could in any way be rationally
regarded as connected with
the treatment to which the
animal had been exposed, were the
excessive accumulation of
fat in the tissues of the omentum, peritoneum, and pericardium,
and the tendency to the
establishment of a similar accumulation in the cardiac muscle, the
liver, the pancreas and the spleen.
But the only persistent
symptom attending the treatment during life was a
considerable
diminution in appetite for food, so that, in so far as the results
of a single experiment afford
any ground for inference, it would appear that the most important
effect of the habitual
employment of inhalations of the smoke of ganja is to give rise to
diminution in the nor-
mal processes of tissue-waste to such a degree that local
accumulations of fat are liable to
occur even in spite of the coincident and similarly originating
diminution in the ingestion of
food. The diminution in activity of the normal processes of
tissue-waste tends, on the
one hand, to give rise to decreased ingestion of food and on the
other to local accumulations
of fat in spite of this. But, if the habitual practice of
inhalations of the drug really do
produce such effects, it is clear that, in place of being hurtful,
it may be positively beneficial
to people who are obliged to undergo exertions without having the
means of procuring a diet
fully adapted to make good the amount of tissue-waste normally
associated with these. As
has been already pointed out, it is necessary to exercise extreme
caution in coming to any
definite conclusions from the experiment, first, because it is an
isolated one, and, second,
because the post-mortem examination has not yet been
histologically completed, but the
evidence which it has afforded, is, in so far as it goes, rather in
favour of the use of the drug
under certain conditions than adverse to it.
EXPERIMENT II.
On the effects of habitual ingestion of charas.
In this experiment two
small monkeys (M. cynomolgus) were employed. One of
them,
A, weighed 5 lb 7 oz., and the other, B, 4 lb 1 oz.
A standard globule of the
drug, representing the amount of his ordinary dose, was
obtained from a habitual charas-eater. It weighed 1.05 grain and at
the outset of the ex-
periment one-twentieth part of that amount was daily administered
to A, and one-twenty-
fourth part to B, as approximately proportionate doses weight for
weight, as compared with
those of the man and his ordinary doses.
The drug was rubbed up
with a little milk and the animals readily partook of the
mixture. Doses of the above amount were daily administered for some
time, but, as they
failed to produce any appreciable symptoms, the quantity was then
gradually increased,
until towards the close of the experiment as much as 3 grains, was
given daily to each of
the animals.