| Raspberries, | yielding | 4 | per cent. | of sugar and | 1·48 | of (malic) | acid. |
| Strawberries | ” | 5·7 | ” | ” | 1·31 | ” | ” |
| Whortleberries | ” | 5·8 | ” | ” | 1·34 | ” | ” |
| Currants | ” | 6·1 | ” | ” | 2·04 | ” | ” |
The amount of free acid in the mulberry is not small, nor is it excessive. The small proportion of insoluble matters is worthy of notice in comparison, for instance with the whortleberry, which contains no less than 13 per cent. The colouring matter of the mulberry has not been examined. The acid is probably not simply malic, but in part tartaric.
Uses—The sole use in medicine of mulberries is for the preparation of a syrup employed to flavour or colour any other medicines. In Greece, the fruit is submitted to fermentation, thereby furnishing an inebriating beverage.
CANNABINEÆ.
HERBA CANNABIS.
Cannabis Indica; Indian Hemp; F. Chanvre Indien; G. Hanfkraut.
Botanical Origin—Cannabis sativa L., Common Hemp, an annual diœcious plant, native of Western and Central Asia, cultivated in temperate as well as in tropical countries.
It grows wild luxuriantly on the banks of the lower Ural and Volga near the Caspian Sea, extending thence to Persia, the Altai range, and Northern and Western China. It is found in Kashmir and on the Himalaya, growing 10 to 12 feet high, and thriving vigorously at an elevation of 6000 to 10,000 feet. It likewise occurs in Tropical Africa, on the eastern and western coasts as well as in the central tracts watered by the Congo and Zambesi, but whether truly indigenous is doubtful. It has been naturalized in Brazil, north of Rio de Janeiro, the seeds having been brought thither by the negroes from Western Africa. The cultivation of hemp is carried on in many parts of continental Europe, but especially in Central and Southern Russia.
The hemp plant grown in India exhibits certain differences as contrasted with that cultivated in Europe, which were noticed by Rumphius in the 17th century, and which (about a.d. 1790), induced Lamarck to claim for the former plant the rank of a distinct species, under the name of Cannabis indica. But the variations observed in the two plants are of so little botanical importance and are so inconstant, that the maintenance of C. indica as distinct from C. sativa has been abandoned by general consent.
In a medicinal point of view, there is a wide dissimilarity between hemp grown in India and that produced in Europe, the former being vastly more potent. Yet even in India there is much variation, for, according to Jameson, the plant grown at altitudes of 6000 to 8000 feet affords the resin known as Charas, which cannot be obtained from that cultivated on the plains.[2023]