As far as O'Shaughnessy's contribution to medicine is concerned, its correlation with colonial power is perhaps not as obvious. It is in his work on the telegraph system - and particularly his role in rebuilding it after it was largely destroyed in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 - that we can see more clearly the dubious nexus between such scientific projects and the endeavours of colonialism, a connection made more explicit at moments of political crisis. It terminated nearly as rapidly as it commenced, and no headache, sickness, or other unpleasant symptom followed the innocent excess. A scene more interesting it would be difficult to imagine. For three hours and upwards he maintained the character he at first assumed, and with a degree of ease and dignity perfectly becoming his high situation. He entered on discussions on religious, scientific, and political topics, with astonishing eloquence, and disclosed an extent of knowledge, reading, and a ready apposite wit, which those who knew him best were altogether unprepared for. I found him enacting the part of a Raja giving orders to his courtiers he could recognize none of his fellow students or acquaintances all to his mind seemed as altered as his own condition he spoke of many years having passed since his student's days described his teachers and friends with a piquancy which a dramatist would envy detailed the adventures of an imaginary series of years, his travels, his attainment of wealth and power. Despite the slightly chaotic scenes, within a day or so both patients were much relieved of their rheumatism, and in three days completely cured. After a subsequent “uncontrollable” fit of the giggles this second patient then took up the strange condition of the first, his arms and legs “remain in any desired position”. The commotion of events ended up rousing a second patient, similarly dosed, who became “vastly amused at the statuelike attitudes” he witnessed, and then proceeded, after a sudden “loud peal of laughter” to exclaim that “four spirits were springing with his bed into the air”. In them we find detailed records of his prescient experiments and a fine example of his unique style of research.Įlsewhere O'Shaughnessy describes a somewhat surreal episode in which a rheumatism patient administered with cannabis enters a state of “catalepsy”, whereupon his rigid limbs could be moved only with the help of medical staff, who could place them in “every imaginable attitude” where they would remain “no matter how contrary to the natural influence of gravity” - all while the patient remained completely “insensible”. The papers on his experiments with the plant were published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in late 1839 - and were also read in front of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta in October of that year. As an intoxicant cannabis was fairly common in India, as O'Shaughnessy noted, but he demonstrated its potential use in a medical context, particularly as an anaesthetic. O'Shaughnessy also stands out on account of what was, arguably, his most significant contribution to medicine: the claim that cannabis could be used as a medicinal drug. The colonial peripheries had no shortage of impressive polymaths, but what sets O'Shaughnessy apart is the manner in which, while conducting research in his many areas of interest, he not only tapped into elaborate local knowledge networks and structures, but also rigorously documented them, thoroughly crediting his sources both bibliographic and human.
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