Until 1937, when the United States ruled that marijuana was an illegal substance, cannabis was an accepted, if often ineffective, medication. The following are excerpts from medical journals and pharmacopoeias that show some of the far-fetched afflictions for which cannabis was prescribed—and also how much medical progress has been made in the last century.

The July 4, 1891, British Medical Journal reports that Indian hemp was frequently prescribed for "a form of insanity peculiar to women, caused by mental worry of moral shock, in which it clearly acts as a psychic anodyne [tranquilizer]—[it] seems to remove the mental distress and unrest."

In 1898, King's American Dispensatory called Cannabis indica "one of the most important of our remedies," particularly for "marked nervous depression.... [I]t has been efficient in delirium tremens, wakefulness in fevers, neuralgia, gout, rheumatism, infantile convulsions, low mental conditions, insanity ... [a]cute mania and...