Source: cannasos.com
Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau by his son artist Georges Moreau
Among the early pioneers of modern psychopharmacology, Jacques-Joseph Moreau stands out as one of the scientists who subjected cannabis to rigorous studies and clinical experimentation.
Born in Montresor, France in 1804, Moreau studied medicine in Paris. While studying psychiatry, he embarked on long therapeutic travels as per the advice of his professors. He continued to travel after he finished his studies and started working as a psychiatrist in Paris.
Several of his travels took him to Asian countries where he learned first hand about cannabis and how it affected its users. But Moreau wasn’t a passive observer, choosing to partake in the experiments himself and get a personal experience of the whole cannabis trip.
Supplier to the Literati
Having had enough, of both traveling and cannabis, Moreau returned to France where he resumed his practice. This time he focused on the therapeutic effects of cannabis especial on mental illnesses such as depression, melancholy, and schizophrenia. He continued to experiment with cannabis and even introduced many of his friends including writers like Charles Baudelaire, Alexander Duma, and Balzac to the herb. A club was formed in Paris under the name Le Club des Hachichins (the club of cannabis users) where Moreau became the main supplier. For that, he gained the nickname Dr. X.
Cannabis for Mental Illness
Moreau’s interest in herbal medicine as a treatment for mental illnesses started with a hallucinogen called Datura stramonium L. Solanaceae. The substance produced symptoms on the users similar to those of mental illnesses and Moreau hoped that could help him understand the nature of the conditions and find a more effective treatment.
From there Moreaus shifted his focus to cannabis and devoted most of his time applying what he studied and observed in his travels on the herb. After years of study, experimentation with cannabis and observing its effects on friends and patients alike, Moreau published his book Du Hachisch et de l’Alientation Mentale: Études Psychologiques in 1845 where it became a classic in the field of psychology.
Cannabis and the Psychologist
Despite the fame and respect Moreau’s book received, it had limited print and soon disappeared from the markets. It took more than 130 years before the book finally was translated into English under the title “Hashish and Mental Illness” in 1973. In one striking passage from the book, Moreau outlines his perception of cannabis as a potential cure for many mental issues:
One of the effects of hashish that struck me most forcefully and which generally gets the most attention is that manic excitement always accompanied by a feeling of gaiety and joy inconceivable to those who have never experienced it. I saw in it a mean of effectively combating the fixed ideas of depressives, disrupting the chain of their ideas, of unfocusing their attention on such and such a subject.
But the first few years of using cannabis for treating mental patients didn’t offer promising results. Some patients responded positively to the herb while others didn’t improve at all or even get worse. However, Moreau didn’t give up. About 13 years later he was treating a patient suffering from intractable lypemania (a form of obsessive mental disorder) when he decided to put him on cannabis therapy. After a few weeks, the patient not only showed signs of progress but was on his way for full recovery.
Later Years
Moreau continued to use cannabis to treat patients with different mental disorders for the rest of his life. Many of his medical conclusions were later corroborated by recent studies which went on to prove the scientific grounds behind using cannabis in treating patients with mental illnesses.
Moreau famously said that insanity was the dream of a man who was awake. His works are revered in the medical circles and they offer us a valuable insight into the nineteenth-century medicine and the use of cannabis in psychopharmacology.
Even though his work never received the recognition he deserved in his lifetime, after his death in 1884 at the age of 80, Moreau’s books and theories gained respect and was used to build a case around the value of cannabis in the field of psychology and treatment of mental disorders.
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