DEPARTMENT OF DEFIANT RESOURCES |
| DIRECTOR Methodius Stankić |
ABOUT
When labouring under the effects of the hashish, they are capable of the most ridiculous extravagances, cutting and slashing themselves with knives, putting soot in their mouths, sticking pins and needles into their flesh; and what •with the great excitement this substance produces, and the violent contortions of body it gives rise to, it generally ends by their falling down in a state of insensibility. An extract is made from the seeds at Cairo, which is sold in small white cakes, at about two piastres the cake; the leaves are also mixed with tobacco for smoking. The effects of the hashish when fresh are highly curious; it disposes to talking, singing, and violent motion; in this respect resembling more the laughing gas than any thing else to which I can compare it, producing, like it, a great dilatation of the pupil, and differing from
opium, which seems to act more like stramonium in putting a stop to thought, and in producing pleasurable sensations.
It is curious, that in endeavouring to gain a secret by means of the hashish, the sensibility of the mind is first deadened by stramonium or opium, without which, they assert, they are often foiled by the person subjected to this test, retaining his faculties and natural penetration, during the strong excitement which this substance produces. Can it be that the stramonium acts by destroying the memory ? Certain it is, as I can testify from experience, that during the action of a decoction of stramonium seeds, I found the greatest difficulty in recalling the transactions of the previous day. The Turks assert, that if they can produce this latter effect of forgetfillness, they have no difficulty in making a person tell them all he knows, by giving him certain doses of the hashish; it must not, however, he too large, else it produces too much excitement, leading to violent motion, which latter effect is what they seek to avoid, talking and singing being the most favourable conditions for drawing from him his secret.