Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/682

648 II E M P remedy. The medicinal and dietetic use of hemp spread through India, Persia, and Arabia in the early Middle Ages. The use of hemp (bhang) in India was noticed by Garcia d Orta in 15G3. Berlu in his Treasury of Drugs (1690) describes it as of " an infatuating quality and per nicious use." Attention was recalled to this drug, in conse quence of Napoleon s Egyptian expedition, by De Sacy (1809) and Rouger (1810). Its modern medicinal use is chiefly due to trials by Dr O Shaughnessy in Calcutta (1838-1842). The plant is grown partly and often mainly for the sake of its resin in Persia, northern India, and Arabia, in many parts of Africa, and in Brazil. The hemp plant grown in some parts of the United States yields the active resin so freely that less than 1 grain of the extract is a full dose. But it is as a fibre-producer that the hemp is now being more extensively cultivated in the United States. Hemp seeds were ordered for Plymouth colony as early as 1 G29, but the greater profit derivable from tobacco has always opposed the development of hemp-grow ing. The plant is chiefly grown in the States of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. The produce of Kentucky in 1877 was 6140 tons. According to the census of 1870 the total production of the United States was 12,746 tons. In the northern part of the State of New York the crop is valued chiefly for the seeds, which may be from 20 to 40 bushels or more per acre. The produce per acre in the United States is from 700 to 1000 tt> of fibre, 4 i-j 6 pecks of seed being usually sown. Although the hemp-plant is grown in India chiefly for the production of its narcotic or intoxicating resin, yet a good deal of true hemp fibre is produced there. It is imported into England, however, chiefly from Russia, the United States, Italy, Holland, Germany, Hungary, and Turkey. It is grown in Ireland, and in some parts (Suffolk and Lincolnshire) of England. It thrives well in Algeria. It requires a rich deep soil and heavy manuring, and is an exhausting crop. In Great Britain about 6 pecks of seed per acre are drilled, 18 inches apart, in the middle of April. The male plants are pulled from the end of July to the end of August, the female or seed-bearing plants being gathered in September. The British imports of hemp cannot be ascertained with accuracy, as the official returns include under that name the fibres of many hemp-substitutes. The following statement of hemp imported into the United Kingdom must therefore be taken with all necessary reserve : 1873 1,247,354 cwts. 1874 1,240,168 ,, 1875 1,350,758 ,, 1876 1,174,859 cwts. 1877 1,254,667 1878 1,229,569 The following table gives the sources whence the supplies were chiefly drawn in the year 1877. But it must be again observed that the figures given for the imports from India, the Philippines, and other places to a less degree, include Manila hemp, Sunn hemp, and other spurious hemps. Imports of Ilc.mp into the United Kingdom in 1877. From Dressed. Rough. Tiiw or Cedilla. Russia Cwts. 4 573 Cwts. 347 038 Cwts. 18 225 Germany 7,033 169 744 20 689 Italy 19 477 151 632 44 602 Philippines 333 344 United States ... 10 723 Mexico 35 199 India 62 827 Other countries 6,357 18,636 4,568 There were sent out 11,790 cwts. dressed English-grown hemp, more than half of this going to France. 14,676 cwts. of foreign and colonial dressed hemp were re-exported to British America and other countries, with 133,516 cwts. rough hemp, and 197 cwts. codilla. Nearly all the hemp imported into the United Kingdom is landed at Liverpool, London, Hull, and Leith. Most of it is employed in the manufacture of cables, ropes, cordage, twine, sacking, tar paulins, canvas, and sailcloth. The finest hemp comes from Italy, but it is almost equalled by the higher qualities of the Russian fibre. Russian hemp varies much in price, according to quality and market fluctuations; its price in November 1879 was from 23 to 25 pel ton, Italian or garden hemp fetching from 38 to 41. In order to free the fibre of the hemp plant from the soft and useless parenchyma and the tissues of the bark, the stems are sub mitted to nearly the same processes as those described in the article FLAX. They are dried, beaten, or crushed in a hemp mill, and fermented or retted, preferably in soft water, after which they are again beaten with wooden mallets or in a specially constructed machine called a break. After breaking the stems are scvtcJieil, and thus the separation of the fibres furthered by the rubbing and striking to which they are subjected. The fibres are then hacklal or combed. According to Vetillart, the average length of European hemp fibres is 86 inch, the extremes being 2 and 2 1 inches. Dr M Nab gives 0005 to "0007 inch as the diameter of fibres, the central cavity being 0001 in breadth. Under the microscope hemp fibres resemble those of flax, both being bast-fibres, and ditl er widely from those of Manila hemp or New Zealand flax ; they are longitudinally striated cylinders, sometimes free and sometimes associated in small bundles. A hemp cord of 1 square millimetre section will bear, according to Haberlandt, an average weight of 34 "5 kilogrammes without breaking sometimes as much as 50 kilos. The chief constituent of the fibre of hemp is of course cellulose, but small quantities of other substances are always present the purest sorts, however, being richest in cellulose. A fine sample of Italian hemp gave on analysis the following percentages water 8 9, wax 6, ash 8, matters soluble in water 3 5, lignose, albuminoids, &c., 8 4, cellulose 77 8. An ordinary sample of Russian hemp contained no less than 10 5 per cent, of moisture, and 15 of mineral matter, with but 72 of pure cellulose. By boiling a portion of this sample for four hours with water in a sealed tube at 150 0., a soluble extract amounting to -j^tli of the original hemp was ob tained, Manila hemp giving 15 4 per cent., and Phonnium fibre no less than 19 per cent., when similarly treated. Dilute solutions of iodine and sulphuric acid, successively applied, give to hemp fibres a greenish hue. The ash of hemp is rich in lime. Hemp-resin. Hemp as a drug or intoxicant for smoking and chewing occurs in the three forms of bhang, ganja, and charas. (1) J)/iany, the Hindustani siihUti or salzi, consists of the dried leaves and small stalks of the hemp ; a few fruits occur in it. It is of a dark brownish green colour, and has a faint peculiar odour and but a slight taste. It is smoked with or without tobacco ; or it is made into a sweatraeat with honey, sugar, and aromatic spices ; or it is powdered and infused in cold water, yielding a tur bid drink, subdschi. Hashish is one of the .Arabic names given to the Syrian and Turkish preparations of the resin ous hemp leaves. One of the commonest of these prepar ations is made by heating the bhang with water and butter, the butter becoming thus charged with the resinous and active substances of the plant. (2) Ganja, the guaza of the London brokers, consists of the flowering and fruiting heads of the female plant. It is brownish-green, and otherwise resembles bhang, as in odour and taste. Some of the more esteemed kinds of hashish are prepared from this ganja. Ganja is met with in the Indian bazaars in dense bundles of 24 plants or heads apiece. The hashish in such extensive use in Central Asia is often seen in the bazaars of large cities in the form of cakes, 1 to 3 inches thick, 5 t:> 10 inches broad, and 10 to 15 inches long. (3) Charas, or churrus, is the resin itself collected, ns it exudes naturally from the plant, in different ways. The best sort is gathered by the hand like opium ; sometimes the resinous exudation of the plant is made to stick first of all to cloths, or to the leather garments of men, or even to their skin, and is then removed by scraping, and afterwards con solidated by kneading, pressing, and rolling. It contains about one-third or one-fourth its weight of the resin. But the churrus prepared by different methods and in different countries differs greatly in appearance and purity. Some times it takes the form of egg-like masses of greyish-brown

colour, having when of high quality a shining resinous