- Louis Aubert-Roche
Louis Aubert-Roche (1810-1874) was a French physician who was a specialist concerning the research of contagious diseases such as
bubonic plague andtyphoid fever .Aubert-Roche is remembered for a 1840 publication titled "Du typhus et de la pests en Orient" (Concerning
Typhus and thePestilence in the Orient), in which he describes his medical work in North Africa and Southwestern Asia. In this book he mentions the possibilities of usinghashish to treat symptoms of the plague and typhoid fever. This belief was based on his observance that Egyptians who indulged in hashish seemed to be less susceptible to diseases that affected Europeans. This book was an inspiration topsychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau (1804-1884), who later used hashish in the 1840s for research of itspsychoactive properties.Aubert-Roche was not the first European physician to mention the medical possibilities of
cannabis -based drugs. In 1839,William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (1809-1889} of theBritish East India Company published a treatise called "On the Preparation of the IndianHemp or Gunja, Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal".References
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=9bsze07l494C&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=roche+%221808+1878%22&source=web&ots=ThtcLPR4Da&sig=pZz-xJ80VBf6K5JFqPyYRp9mpSc Beginnings in French Literature]
* [http://www.friendsofcannabis.com/friends/hashish_club.htm Club des Hashischins - The Hashish Club]
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