MEDICAL CANNABIS A SHORT GRAPHICAL HISTORY GREECE & ROME

[Translated by John Bostock & H.T. Riley MDCCCLVI]
Book 20: Drugs obtained from garden plants - Chapter 97. --- HEMP: Nine Remedies - [Page 297] - Hemp originally grew in the forests, ^[81] where it is found with a blacker and rougher leaf than in the other ^[82] kinds. [Page 298] -- Hempseed, ^[83] it is said, renders men impotent: the juice of this seed will extract worms from the ears, or any insect which may have entered them, through at the cost of producing head-ache. The virtues of hemp, it is said, are so great, that an infusion of it in water will cause it to coagulate: ^[84] hence it is, that if taken in water, it will arrest looseness in beasts of burden. A decoction of the root in water, relaxes contractions of the joints, and cures gout and similar maladies. It is applied raw to burns, but it must be frequently changed, so as not to let it dry.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] - The wild hemp of Pliny is the Althaea cannabina of Linnaeus: the hemp marsh-mallow.
[82] - The cultivated hemp is the Cannabis sativa of Linuaous.
[83] - He is speaking of the hemp marsh-mallow here, and not the real hemp; though at the same time he mingles with his statement several facts which are stated by Dioscorides with reference to the genuine hemp, See B. xix. c. 56.
[84] - This is evidently stated in reference to the hemp-mallow.