History of Cannabis application in Human medicine.

in #cannabis5 years ago

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Our generation have witnessed a twist of fate in many aspects of existence, values changed as a reaction to recent and far past happenings, our reactions to these occurrences in form of modifications in our lifestyles have led to a change of long lasting cultures, habits and practices.

This spans across the musical, agricultural, technological and also medical aspects of our existence to bring to us a ‘better’ way of life, but in real sense, these modifications only brings us closer to a synthetic lifestyle, which however is beneficial—on the average. Things gets more severe, the weather becomes more uncomfortable, our reactions to these discomfort led to more harm to the environment and more modifications to the harms we caused. This has led to a weather of chaos, as in our bid to cure the problems we created, we end up adding more problems to our cure-list.

The medical sectors is no stranger to this, modern medicine is consistently getting more synthetic with the introduction of any new approach, new drug, new resistance to drug and new form of abuse of the existing approaches or drugs, we moved from the heat-pits to the incubators and from the quinine-containig tree barks to the fast acting Arthemeter and Lumefantrin malaria therapy, these are our road maps to a synthetic lifestyle and our cheetah-speed race towards a synthetic world.

While this have made things faster and more efficient, it has no doubt exposed us to many harms as issue or metal toxicity, liver failure and eye problems have increased over the years, not to mention cancer which have become more widespread as carcinogens have multiplied in number and distribution as well.

In recent medical approach towards, pain relief, pain resistance, pain management and anti-depression, many descendants of the first medically recognized pain reliever Morphine have surfaced, and the fentanyl class of analgesics are over ten times more potent than the original morphine, and even with a wider scope of application, but with a lesser therapeutic index and even more risk of kidney and liver failure due to chemical overload.

Named after Morpheus the Greek god of dreams, morphine was dubbed to posses great anti-depressant effects and a very welcoming feeling on consumption with no side effects, at least on moderate consumption, however, the user of marijuana-related plants for medical purposes can be dated back to many years before the Greek discover of morphine and application in medicine. Here we will delve into the past and take a look at how the application of cannabis in medicine have evolved over time.

In my previous post , where I discussed the best/healthiest way to consume cannabis and other related natural analgesics, I had a long conversation with @technosgirl on the issue of ‘overdosing’ on cannabis, and she insisted on the opinion that cannabis should not be juxtaposed with overdosing. An opinion which I feel is right too as when compared with adverse reaction associated with overdosing on other synthetic analgesics, that of cannabis can be termed meagre and insignificant.

However, for medical purposes, this term or retained, as even though these reactions aren’t severe, they are unwanted and out of the plan. But this is only a show of the lesser side effects of the natural formulae.

Long story cut short, the advent of cannabis in the medical sector could be traced back to ancient Asia, 2700BC, the locals of China used seed from Hemp( a subsidiary of Cannabis) extensively as a source of oil, this plant was cultivated and the seeds harvested and processed to obtain oil which is used for cooking and the leaves thrown away as there’s no use for it, fibres from the plant was used for making ropes and due to the high protein content of the seeds, they were also taken cooked as supplements.

The high use of hemp and it’s economic importance compelled the inhabitants to try out other plants which had similar characteristics, cannabis and marijuana was discovered on the course of their search for ‘another hemp’ and also an attempt to use these plants in medical practises revealed their effects on human feelings, this was a breakthrough in ancient Asian medicine and people reported to feel less/ no pain on consumption of leaves from these plants, the trims also had these effects. Consumption of the leaves plunges the individual to a rare feeling of comfort and some reported to see demons on taking these leaves, this caused some religious beliefs attached to cannabis and it’s related plants. It’s ability to cure many discomforting feelings were also attributed to the spirits which were believed to live in them.

In India, this belief continued and according to Indians, the god bhang, was believed to live in the cannabis leaves and controls the feelings and healing it brings, and bhang was dubbed the god of happiness
Cannabis use was also discovered in Egyptian relics which revealed it’s used around 1500BC for the treatment of inflammation as recorded by Egyptian physician Ebers Papyrus, this was the earliest recorded use of the plant in Africa, however, with the poor recording methods in Africa, earlier use of cannabis might be omitted, and also earlier use of cannabis in other countries is also not recorded.

Use of Cannabis for medical purposes grew high in Asia as the physicians adopted it for many other uses and the application developed more with time, Hua Tuo, a Chinese physician was the first to use cannabis as an Anaesthetic during surgery in 200AD, he mixed powered cannabis with wine and on drinking the mixture, his patient felt great resistance to pain, this intoxication he described as extraordinary intoxication.

Cannabis gained application in Islamic states when it was uses as a substitute for wine which was banned in the country, and here they gave it the name ‘grass’

Cannabis was adopted in Europe around 100AD and was also used for medical purposes and also spread across to American continents from Europe, the name marijuana was invented by Mexican immigrants to America, however, it’s advent was dampened by the widespread abuse around these regions and hence regulatory actions including bans in many countries ensued and these were signed into national laws…

References

A Brief History Of Medical Cannabis: From Ancient Anesthesia To The Modern Dispensary

CULTUREA Complete History of Marijuana, According To Scientists

Post also appeared on smoke.io both profile are mine.

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To a sense you can overdose on cannabis. Ofcourse it’s not like drugs that affect breathing. An overdose on cannabis can be panic attacks, and maybe passing out. Which has happened to me. CBD is actually the anti dote for to much THC. Which I like to keep on hand just in case. I love to macro dose. Great post. Going to hit this with @canna-curate in a bit 👍

Yea, Even though it's overdose doesn't really have much adverse effect, the fact that some hyper-reactions occur justifies it classification as an overdose. Thanks for the love

You know how I know when I over dosed? When I go lock myself in my room and stair at the wall for 4 hours!! LOl

Thanks for sharing this here on Steem. Cross posting on Smoke and Steem is a no brainer, everyone should do it! Who ever made that picture should of changed it to say "History Of Cannabis, since the term Marijuana did not come about til the early 1900's, and it is actually a racist term.

I was also sceptical about using that image, but apart from the errors, it was the best I could find.

No your right, its a fitting picture. The story of that word is worthy of a post, since it's a very interesting story that im sure lots don't even know about. Maybe in the future you can do another well done post like this about that subject? I would but it wouldn't be this good, lol

Sure, I will, with time anyways

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