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The oldest book that we have of pharmacopeia, which is a collection of drugs and their uses,
is from China. In that book, they have shown, they've discuss the use of marijuana for the
treatment of rheumatism, menstrual cramps, even forgetfulness. And there's even like
another book called the Ebers Papyrus from Egypt. And some people say that's even older.
And that also mentions marijuana. But if you go back, if you go to the modern times, like
western medicine that we have today, it really wasn't until the 1830s, 1840s that marijuana
or cannabis, as it was called at the time, made its entrance.
There was a western doctor named O'Shaughnessy, Dr. O'Shaughnessy who was an Irish physician
who actually as a medical student discovered the treatment for cholera by giving people
intravenous fluids, hydration, which saved a lot of lives. And then he went to India
and laid down telegraph lines across the country and was knighted. But in the meantime and
in the midst of all that he learned from local healers about this cannabis medicine and was
able to show that it could be used for tetanus and epilepsy, even rabies he was experimenting
with. And he published his results and brought cannabis back with him to England and to the
United Kingdom. And really it picked up like wildfire. A lot of doctors were using it in
their medicines. Even Queen Victoria's doctor, Dr. Reynolds, prescribed it to Queen Victoria
for her menstrual cramps.
In the United States from the 1830s to the 1940s, for 100 years, it was in our pharmacopeia,
our official United States book of approved drugs. Lots of companies like Merck and Eli
Lilly that you've heard of today and companies that don't exist today had cannabis or marijuana
based medicines that they produced and they put on pharmacy shelves. So at that time they
used it for the treatment of cramps and pain, some of the things that we still use are things
are know marijuana is useful for today. But, because of the politics and reefer madness
and all of the issues around, and also other newer drugs coming on the scene, marijuana
kind of fell out of favor and is really now experiencing a resurgence.