By whichever of these processes obtained, charas is of necessity a foul and crude drug, the use of which is properly excluded from civilized medicine. As before remarked ([p. 547]) it is not obtainable from hemp grown indiscriminately in any situation even in India, but is only to be got from plants produced at a certain elevation on the hills.
The best charas, which is that brought from Yarkand, is a brown, earthy-looking substance, forming compact yet friable, irregular masses of considerable size. Examined under a strong pocket lens, it appears to be made up of minute, transparent grains of brown resin, agglutinated with short hairs of the plant. It has a hemp-like odour, with but little taste even in alcoholic solution. A second and a third quality of Yarkand charas represent the substance in a less pure state. Charas viewed under the microscope exhibits a crystalline structure, due to inorganic matter. It yields from ¼ to ⅓ of its weight of an amorphous resin, which is readily dissolved by bisulphide of carbon or spirit of wine. The resin does not redden litmus, nor is it soluble in caustic potash. It has a dark brown colour, which we have not succeeded in removing by animal charcoal. The residual part of charas yields to water a little chloride of sodium, and consists in large proportion of carbonate of calcium and peroxide of iron. These results have been obtained in examining samples from Yarkand.[2044] Other specimens which we have also examined, have the aspect of a compact dark resin.
Charas is exported from Yarkand[2045] and Kashgar, the first of which places exported during 1867, 1830 maunds (146,400 lb.) to Lê, whence the commodity is carried to the Punjab and Kashmir. Smaller quantities are annually imported from Kandahar and Samarkand;[2046] some charas appears also (1876) to be exported from Mandshuria to China. The drug is mostly consumed by smoking with tobacco; it is not found in European commerce.
STROBILI HUMULI.
Humulus vel Lupulus; Hops; F. Houblon; G. Hopfen.
Botanical Origin—Humulus Lupulus L.,—a diœcious perennial plant, producing long annual twining stems which climb freely over trees and bushes. It is found wild, especially in thickets on the banks of rivers, throughout all Europe, from Spain, Sicily and Greece to Scandinavia; and extends also to the Caucasus, the South Caspian region, and through Central and Southern Siberia to the Altai mountains. It has been introduced into North America, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), and Australia.
History—Hops have been used from a remote period in the brewing of beer, of which they are now regarded as an indispensable ingredient. Hop gardens, under the name humularia or humuleta, are mentioned as existing in France and Germany in the 8th and 9th centuries; and Bohemian and Bavarian hops have been known as an esteemed kind since the 11th century. A grant alleged to have been made by William the Conqueror in 1069, of hops and hop-lands in the county of Salop,[2047] would indicate, were it free from doubt, a very early cultivation of the hop in England.
As to the use made of hops in these early times, it would appear that they were regarded in somewhat of a medicinal aspect. In the Herbarium of Apuleius,[2048] an English manuscript written about a.d. 1050, it is said of the hop (hymele) that its good qualities are such that men put it in their usual drinks; and St. Hildegard,[2049] a century later, states that the hop (hoppho) is added to beverages, partly for its wholesome bitterness, and partly because it makes them keep.
Hops for brewing were among the produce which the tenants of the abbey of St. Germain in Paris[2050] had to furnish to the monastery in the beginning of the 9th century; yet in the middle of the 14th century, beer without such addition was still brewed in Paris.
The brewsters, bakers and millers of London were the subject of a mandate of Edward I. in a.d. 1298; but there is no reason for inferring that the manufacture of malt liquor at this period involved the use of hops. It is plain indeed that somewhat later, hops were not generally used, for in the 4th year of Henry VI. (1425-26), an information was laid against a person for putting into beer “an unwholesome weed called an hopp;”[2051] and in the same reign, Parliament was petitioned against “that wicked weed called hops.”