1. Francois Rabelais learned about cannabis cultivation on the estate of his father who “grew much hemp on his property” (Stearn, in press).
2. The “fictionalized version of the plant (named) after his giant hero” Pantagruel (Grinspoon, 1971: 33).
3. Cannabis sativa is known by many names in different world areas. Ganja, the Hindi term, is prevalent in areas where the plant, and possibly the complex surrounding its multipurpose uses, was diffused from India.
4. O’shaughnessy (1842) and other 19th-century Western physicians reported on the beneficial therapeutic effects of cannabis as an anticonvulsant. Reports which “suggest that marijuana may possess an anticonvulsant effect in human epilepsy” are cited in a recent article by Consroe, Wood, and Buchsbaum (1975).
5. This information appears in a Russian publication, by L. V. Antzyferov, “Hashish in Central Asia,” Journal of Socialist Health Care in Uzbekstan (1934).