Early medical use of cannabis

• On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah

  By W.B. O'Shaugnessy, published in 1839 in Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal. This paper was responsible for generating the enthusiasm of the medical community toward cannabis in the mid-19th Century.

• NEW Bibliographic Notes: O'Shaughnessy

  A review of O'Shaughnessy's work on Cannabis from the November, 1843 edition of The New-York Journal of Medicine.

• Cannabis Indica

  A section from Dr. Robley Dunglison's New Remedies: Pharmaceutically and Therapeutically Considered (1843), briefly describing the medical use of cannabis extract.

• Cannabis Sativa

  A section from The Dispensatory of the United States of America (1843) by George B. Wood and Franklin Bache.

• Indian Hemp

  A chapter from James F. Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life (1855), detailing the extent of mid-19th Century knowledge about the effects of cannabis. "In India it is spoken of as the increaser of pleasure, the exciter of desire, the cementer of friendship, the laughter-mover, and the causer of the reeling gait."

• Tilden's Extract

  An 1858 catalog entry for cannabis extract from the Laboratory of Tilden & Co., the source of Ludlow's "Hasheesh."

• Scientific Notes (excerpts)

  Notes on the discovery of the Chinese use of Cannabis as an anæsthetic centuries before, from Appletons' Journal in 1873.

• Hashish

  From a 1930 edition of Pharmacal Advance.

• Cannabis

  Excerpts from the British Pharmaceutical Codex of 1934.

• American Medical Association Opposes the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

  Sample quote: "Since the medicinal use of cannabis has not caused and is not causing addiction, the prevention of the use of the drug for medicinal purposes can accomplish no good end whatsoever."