Hemp, however consumed, acts in a most strange way upon the nervous system, but its effects differ greatly with races as well as with individuals. Generally the first effect of a small dose is to produce increase of appetite and cheerfulness. Larger doses produce hallucinations, delirium, sleep, and sometimes catalepsy. During the dreamy state induced by an average dose of hashish, the patient becomes the sport of rapidly shifting ideas. Errors of perception as to time and place are a conspicuous characteristic of its effects on the mind. For the connexion of the name assassin with hashish, see vol. ii. p. 723.
Extract of hemp has been repeatedly tried in modern European medical practice without very consistent or satis factory results. It has antispasmodic and anodyne char acters, and has been employed in tetanus, spasmodic cough, hydrophobia, and some forms of mania. It is a quieter of the nervous system, but does not cause constipation, check the appetite, nor diminish the secretions like opium. Hemp is very largely used in Eastern countries as an intoxicant and narcotic probably by nearly 300 millions of the human race. The amount consumed cannot be esti mated. Of dried hemp and churrus there was sent in 187G not less than 86,000 worth through the Khyber Pass into British India.
There are three substances in the hemp-drug to which its activity lias been attributed. Of these the resin, separated and investigated by Messrs T. & H. Smith, is the most abundant and probably the most important, and yet its chemical nature and properties are by no means certain. It is soluble in alcohol, and has a warm, bitter, acrid taste with a slight odour. It melts between 70 and 90 C. , and has a pale brown colour. It is called cannabin. Cannabene is the volatile oil of Indian hemp obtained by distilling ganja or churrus with water. Its composition is represented by C 9 H 10 ; it boils between 235 and 240. Cannabene is accompanied by a crystalline hydrocarbon containing 84 per cent, carbon and 16 per cent, hydrogen. The supposed occurrence of nicotine in Indian hemp has not been confirmed, and would not in any way suffice to explain the properties of the drug. Moreover, tobacco is often added to hemp. That there is a volatile alkaloid in hemp, though in small quantities, is, however, established beyond doubt. The proportion of pure resin in ganja was found by Messrs T. & H. Smith to be 6 or 7 per cent. Gastinell gives 3 per cent, as obtain able from Egyptian hemp. The volatile oil in fresh hemp pro bably does not exceed 3 parts in 1000. By treating the commercial resinous extract of Indian hemp with strong nitric acid, Bolas and Francis obtained (Journ. Chcm. Soc., vol. vii., n. s., p. 417) an oxidation product, soluble in alcohol and crystallizing in long flat prisms. The formula C 5 H 6 2 has been assigned to this substance, which is known as oxycannabin.
Hemp Seed, Cake, and Oil.—The ripe seeds, really fruits, being nuts or achenes of the hemp plant, contain about 34 per cent, of oil and 16 of albuminoids. When the crushed seeds have been submitted to pressure, the re sidual cake is found to retain about 7 per cent, of oil. The value of hemp cake as a cattle-food is lessened by its purgative property. The seeds are much used as a food for singing birds. A hundred parts of the seed yield from 70 to 75 of cake and 25 to 30 of oil. This oil has drying properties, though it is in this respect much inferior to linseed oil. Its specific gravity is 9307. The seeds are roundish ovate, about ^ inch in length, and of a dark grey colour, with a pale ash-coloured network of surface- markings.
See Bentley and Trimen s Medicinal Plants, No. 231 ; Vetillart s Etudes sur Us fibres textiles, pp. 72-87 ; Dickson s Fibre Plants of India; Royle s Fibrous Plants of India; Cultivation of Hemp in India-, Dr O Shaughnessy s Preparation of Indian Hemp or Gunjah ; Yatess Textrinum Antiquorum ; Hugo Miiller s Pflanzenfascr ; the Dispensatory of the United States; Knight s Dictionary of Mechanics; Dr G. Martius s Studien iiber den Hanf; and Johnston s Chemistry of Common Lt fe, 1879.
HEMS, Homs, or Hums, a town of Syria, about 63 miles by road north-east of Tripoli (Tarabulus), situated 1312 feet, according to Cernik, above the level of the sea, on the eastern side of the valley of the Nahr el Asy or Orontes, which about 4 miles further down forms the lake of Hems, Atini, or Kabas. The kala at or castle, a great mound " still crowned with a tiara of torn and ruined towers," forms a striking landmark well-known to the caravans journeying north from Damascus. It is about 120 feet in height, and has a breadth of 435 feet and a width of 375. According to Captain Burton, it probably occupies the site of the temple of the sun, which formed the glory of the ancient city : not only does it contain columnar masses of syenite, grey granite, and white marble, but he found, apparently in position, a Doric pilaster. Though the ancient walls of Hems, with a circuit of about a mile and a half, are greatly dilapidated and even in many places practically demolished, the town is entered by regular gates, six in number, which in olden times bore the names of the planets. Within it presents little except narrow and tortuous streets, poorly paved and foul, with houses for the most part of the meanest description ; but none the less it is the seat of a Turkish vice-governor or mutesarif, as well as of a Greek and a Maronite bishop, and its cavalry barracks are capable of containing two regiments. As the market-town of the neighbouring tribes it has some commercial importance : it trades in cotton, sesame, and oil ; and among its craftsmen it numbers a body of skilful goldsmiths and about 3000 silk weavers, whose looms produce the finest kind of kaffiehs or head-cloths. The population is estimated at from 20,000 to 40,000, and about 7000 are Christians. Jews are conspicuous by their absence, though one of the gates of the town in the quarter which they formerly occupied is still called the " Jews Gate."
Hems is the Emesa, Emissa, or Hemesa of the Romans, and by Ptolemy it is assigned to the district of Apamene. Its inhabitants are mentioned among the early opponents of the Roman arms. Heliogabalus or Bassianus, declared emperor in 218 a.d., was a native of Emesa, and held office as a priest of the sun. It was in the neighbourhood of the town that the army of Zenobia was routed by Aurelian. The first Christian bishop is said to have been St Silvanus. About fourteen years after the Hegira Khalid bin Walid, who was to find his grave in one of its suburbs, made himself master of Hems; and from 1098 to 1187 it was in the hands of the crusaders. It was probably Saladin, by whom they were expelled, that turned the temple of the sun, which under Christian rule had been used as a cathedral, into the chief fortress of the place. In Jnly 1831 Ibrahim Pasha, having defeated the governor of Aleppo at Hems, caused the fortress to be blown up.
The poet Ka ab el Ahbar is buried in the town, and the people show another grave which they wrongly believe to be that of Ja afar el Tayyar. See Burton and Tyrwhitt Drake, Uncyplorcd Syria, 1872.
HEMSTERHUIS, François (1720–1790), writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy, was born at Franeker in Holland in 1720. He received an excellent education from his father, Tiberius Hemsterhuis, noticed below, and com pleted his studies at the university of Leyden. There un doubtedly he was attracted towards the study of the Platonic philosophy, which exercised the greatest influence both on the form and on the matter of his own writings. He did not, however, devote himself to a learned life after complet ing his university courses, but entered upon practical affairs, and for many years acted as secretary to the state council of the United Provinces. His interests were mainly philo sophical, and partly by direct social intercourse with a few similarly disposed friends, partly by correspondence with philosophical writers of other countries, mainly with Jacobi, he preserved the continuity of his philosophical work. His writings, none of which can be described as of high speculative worth, are distinguished by elegance of form and by the touch of refined sentiment which is not uncom mon among the amateur or dilettante philosophers of the 18th century. Any direct contributions to philosophy made by him are in the department of aesthetics or the general analysis of feeling. He died in 1790.
