Cannabis Indica in 19th-Century Psychiatry
ERIC T. CARLSON M.D.1
1 Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Section on the History of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, 525 East 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10021
The author presents a stuck of the history and usage of cannabis indicus (the 19th-century pharmacological term referring to the plant we today call cannabis sativa indica). His review of the drug's physiological and psychological effects reveals that most of the effects reported in the 1960s were known to writers of the 19th century, when the drug was alternately considered a cure for and a cause of insanity.
