Medical Marijuana Research

While marijuana has been used for its therapeutic benefits since ancient times, it has has been, until recently, classified as a schedule one narcotic by the USA federal government. Still, many states have enacted regulations to allow for it’s medical use. 

Research during the 19th century has established it’s value as a therapeutic, botanical drug used to treat many ailments. 

Here we cover a couple of the scientist and their work in the field, along with reviews of academic studies to support the use of cannabis to treat certain conditions.

William Brooke O’Shaughnessy – A Distinguished Name in Cannabis Science

While the therapeutic use of marijuana dates back to at least a thousand years, the modern history of medical cannabis has a 19^th-century Irish physician, William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, as a prominent character. He scientifically researched the drug’s benefits in India and introduced its healing properties to the Western world.

At a hospital in Calcutta, India, O’Shaughnessy conducted a series of experiments on animals (and even controlled trials on humans later on) by giving them marijuana and observing its effects, both positive and negative.

His studies came to the conclusion that cannabis may be useful in a wide range of human diseases like cholera, rheumatic diseases, delirium, and infantile convulsions. He even tested out the drug on a patient with rabies, and while it didn’t save his life, it did decrease the severity of the symptoms before the patient passed away.

Michael Donovan’s Work on Cannabis and Neuropathic Pain

Michael Donovan, a chemist and licensed apothecary in a medical school in Dublin, executed and reported his medical marijuana research on cannabis in the 1840s. He presented an impressive series of cases where he had succeeded in using cannabis to alleviate pain in multiple patients suffering from migraines, neuropathies, or musculoskeletal ailments.