Godfather of the Hashischins
Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau arrived back home to Paris in 1840 believing he had found the key to his research. Stashed deep in his baggage he carried this new tool into the madness of the mind: Hashish!
Portrait of Moreau in 1845, by N.E. Maurin
While attending medical school, Dr. Moreau studied under the well known French psychiatrist Dr. Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol. Dr. Esquirol would often prescribe his patients to take therapeutic trips, sharing in his fascination with the mind Dr. Esquirol offered Moreau a job upon graduating escorting his patients on these trips. Fresh out of school Dr. Moreau jumped at the opportunity for the chance of field studies and travel.
While on these travels in early 1840, Dr. Moreau read a paper by Louis Rémy Aubert-Roche claiming the therapeutic effects of hashish on ailments such as typhoid and the plague.*1 Intrigued by these new findings, he gave into curiosity and tried some hashish while in Syria.
In his first experience with cannabis, he placing some of the edible mixture he had obtained into his hand and swallowed the new substance with surprising results. In his book ‘Hashish and Mental Alienation’ he describes this first hashish experience “I cannot describe the thousand fantastic ideas that passed through my brain during the three hours that I was under the influence of the hashish.”
Instantly realizing hashish’s potential following his experience, he later writes “I saw in hashish, or rather in its effect upon the mental faculties, a significant means of exploring the genesis of mental illness. I was convinced that it could solve the enigma of mental illness and lead to the hidden source of the mysterious disorder that we call ‘madness’.”
To explore this madness he came up with a new way of understanding the complex illness, “to comprehend the ravings of a madman, it is necessary to have raved oneself, but without having lost awareness of one’s madness, without having lost the power to evaluate the psychic changes occurring in the mind.”
Needing to ‘Rave’ himself, Moreau believed hashish could create this temporary madness while still staying sane theorizing that “hashish gives to whoever submits to its influence the power to study in himself the mental disorders that characterize insanity.”
sketch of Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours, playing the piano in Turkish dress drawn by Hashischin Theophile Gautier under the influence of hashish 1845
Intrigued by his initial findings, he continued to experiment with hashish on himself but soon realized with a drug that could distort impressions, he would need help expressing its effects and possibilities.
In 1840 tired of travel, Moreau returned home to continue his research while working at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris bringing with him his special stash of hashish.
His early experiments with hashish lead Moreau to question whether other herbal drugs had the abilities to treat the mental illness he was studying. He first studied another ancient drug datura stramonium, believing the drugs effects also mirrored that of insanity. In 1841 he published his findings on Datura in the Gazette Medicale de Paris titled ‘Traitement des hallucinations par le datura stramonium’ becoming one of the first psychiatrists to use herbal pharmacology to treat mental illness.
Although Moreau was devoting time to study other herbals, cannabis continued to be on his mind, stating in the study “after my trip to the East, the effects of hashish have been a serious and persevering object of study for me. As far as I have been able, and with all the means at my disposal, I have tried to spread this knowledge among the medical public”.*4
Following his work with datura, Moreau expanded his studies with hashish outside of his medical patients recruiting those who could literate the thoughts and feelings of the induced madness. This newly formed group of the artistic elite would become known as the Club De Hashischins.
Dr. Moreau would take on the famed title ‘Dr. X’ supplying the Hashischins with his hashish mixture called dawamesk (a sweet edible mixture called made from hashish, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pistachio, sugar, orange juice, butter and cantharides) increasing the potent doses up to 16 grams!
In 1845 Dr. Moreau published his findings on hashish in his book ‘Hashish and mental alienation’. In his study Moreau found hashish an effective tool in treating a variety of mental illness ailments including the treatment of depression, “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.”*2
Photograph of Jacques-Joseph Moreau
Dr. Moreau continued to use and study hashish on himself and his patients his entire life even obtaining seeds from Italy in order to grow the cannabis himself in his own garden. Moreau’s belief in cannabis was ultimately only overshadowed by his overwhelming desire to share the experience with the world!
“To those who, after having read my words, still have considerable doubt, I can only repeat: I understand your doubts because, in the case of psychological matters, I know it is impossible to understand what you have not experienced. With illusions and hallucinations…, I can say one thing, and you will be convinced if you follow it. Do what I did: take hashish, experiment on yourself, and see for yourself.”
– Jacques-Joseph Moreau *2(p.75)
‘Hysterics of the Charite on the Service of Dr. Luys’ image by Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours 1887
*1 – Rémy Aubert Roche, De la peste ,ou Typhus d’Orient, Paris 1840.
*2 – ‘Hashish and mental alienation’ by Jacques-Joseph Moreau 1845
*3 – Edmond Decourtive’s thesis on hashish 1848a
*4 – ‘Traitement des hallucinations par le datura stramonium’ by Jacques-Joseph Moreau in the Gazette Medicale de Paris (October) 1841