REPORT BY MR. DAVID HOOPER, GOVERNMENT QUINOLOGIST, MADRAS. 199

stand in warm water for a few hours. If cold water is used for the extraction, it requires
more than 24 hours for complete saturation, and before that time the extract shows signs of
fermentation. One portion of the watery extract was evaporated to complete dryness, another
portion was precipitated with solution of acetate of lead to separate the organic acid, and the
third portion, if sugar was present, was used to titrate a measured volume of Fehling's copper
test. The nitrogen was determined by combustion with soda-lime, and existed in the plant
mostly as albuminoids, although some was yielded by the alkaloids, and in some cases by a
soluble salt of ammonium. The proximate analysis of ganja and bhang was commenced with
ether, which is the best solvent for the active resins, and dissolves very little extraneous
matter. The subsequent action of rectified spirit (sp: gr: o. 83) removed a resin acid, alka-
loids, and in some cases a saccharine body reducing Fehling's solution. By adding together
the ether extract and the resin acid, the result equals the amount of washed resin obtained by
the direct spirit extract. If the spirit extract in the proximate analysis is much over 2 per
cent., it points to the presence of sugar; absolute alcohol, on the other hand, does not dissolve
this sugar so easily. Dr. Prain used petroleum ether for the first solvent to act upon the drug,
and the dried extract obtained by this liquid was returned as " fixed oil, etc." If this were the
case, then all the extracts of Indian hemp would consist mostly of fixed oil, whereas the ex-
tracts from all ganjas consist, as I shall show presently, of resins with a small proportion of
fixed oil. Petroleum ether is a good solvent of the resins, and is of no use in effecting a
separation between them and the oil. The best method is to separate the seeds from the sample
before the analysis, and so exclude the source of the oil. A misconception seems to have
arisen from a statement made by Roux, a French Chemist, in 1887, that the ethereal extract is
inert. If the ethereal extraction follows that of petroleum ether, then, perhaps, the product
is inert, but direct exhaustion of the drug with ether certainly does not yield inert resins.
Dr. Prain estimated, by an indirect method, the essential oil in some samples of ganja, and
obtained some high results, over 6 per cent. in most cases. Indirect methods of estimating
volatile oils give higher figures than by direct distillation, and are not to be depended upon.
I have recently distilled one of the most fragrant ganjas, that from the Kistna district, and it
yielded less than one per cent. of colourless essential oil, having the peculiar odour of the drug.
The essential oil in the other samples has not been determined. The remaining analytical
methods do not require any further explanation.