Cannabidiol: historical cultivation and medicinal applications

History of CBD
Cannabis sativa is a naturally occurring plant that has been known to mankind for thousands of years. CBD, as it is commonly referred to today, stands for cannabidiol—a naturally-occurring chemical constituent that is just one of the several dozen types of cannabinoids contained in cannabis. CBD oil is used today to help prevent or treat a range of different health issues (Romano & Hazekamp, 2013). Cannabis is known as both hemp and marijuana—the former is valued for its practical uses (both industrial and herbal) and the latter is valued for its intoxicating effects. The difference between hemp and marijuana is the degree to which Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is present in the plant. Hemp plants typically have less THC than marijuana plants and though both are cannabis plants, the latter are the more potent when it comes to getting a “high” in the modern parlance. CBD is present in both plants but its presence is greater in hemp cannabis than in marijuana cannabis.
Cannabis was a common plant in the Neolithic Age and could be found everywhere from Northern Europe to China (Barber, 1992). As Russo (2007) points out, it was very possibly one of the earliest plants to ever be cultivated by human societies—mainly for its diverse range of uses and the lightning speed at which it could grow. Archeologists have found evidence of cannabis usage among the ruins of the Oki Islands off Japan, dating from 8000 BC (Long, Wagner, Demske, Leipe & Tarasov, 2017). Lu and Clarke (1995) have shown that “from the time of the earliest primitive societies (about 4,000–5,000 years ago) to the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC to 220 AD) ancient Chinese techniques of hemp sowing, cultivation, and processing developed rapidly and became fairly advanced”(p. 27). The multi-regional proliferation of cannabis most likely increased as trans-Eurasian migration developed over the centuries. Its use in textile production in Europe did not develop until the High Middle Ages, when as Barber (1992) notes the inhabitants of Christendom became more and more aware of the plant’s powers. These powers were discerned through the smoking of the hemp bud, which Barber (1992) argues more than likely originated as a custom in south-central Asia and spread west from there during the Middle Ages. In other words, its popularity as a textile plant was assisted by its popularity as a plant with medicinal value.
The hemp plant was introduced in the Americas following the discovery of the New World in 1492: the Spanish first introduced it in South America, and the English followed suit in North America. The Founding Fathers of the U.S. grew hemp as a cash crop and George Washington is said to have smoked it for its medicinal qualities, which eased the pain of his chronic tooth aches (Deitch, 2003).
Discovery of Medicinal Uses
According to Barber (1992), the medicinal uses of cannabis were well known to the Ancient Asians and by the Middle Ages were known throughout the civilized world. Lu and Clarke (1995) note that ancient Chinese medical texts distinguished between the types of cannabis seeds—similar to the way in which we today distinguish between CBD and THC. The Chinese called them ma ze for nontoxic and ma fen for toxic (Lu & Clarke, 1995). The first historical mention of the medical uses of cannabis in a medical text is found in the Materia Medica of Emperor Shen Nung, which dates back to 2000 BC.  The Materia Medica Sutra states that the toxic ma fen “if taken in excess will produce hallucinations (literally ‘seeing devils’).  If taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one’s body” (Lu & Clarke, 1995, p. 26). In the 2nd century AD, the Chinese surgeon Hua T’o used cannabis seeds to create a numbing medicine (Lu & Clarke, 1995).
Numerous studies have been undertaken to determine how, where, when and why CBD may have been first used by ancient societies. Brand and Zhao (2017) conducted a review of “pre-modern Chinese materia medica texts, known as bencao,” which they used for a systematic review “to investigate the historical applications of different parts of the cannabis plant. In particular, records related to plant parts such as the flowers and leaves were comprehensively investigated for applications that may relate to cannabinoids such as CBD” (p. 109). While medicinal cannabis use through history has been found to be wide-ranging in terms of treatment, Brand and Zhao (2017) focused specifically on its application “to seizures, pain, and mental effects or mental illness, as these conditions have been the subject of extensive research in the context of cannabinoids such as CBD” (p. 110). The noted especially that “as cannabinoids are primarily concentrated in the female flowering tops and leaves rather than the achenes, cortex, and roots, these plant parts were emphasized in this review” (Brand and Zhao, 2017, p. 110). Their study found a great deal of material in the “authentic editions of over 800 historical bencao texts [which have been] collected together in a set known as the Complete Ben Cao (???? Ben Cao Quan Shu); a set of this compilation stored at Hong Kong Baptist University was used as a primary reference in this study” (p. 110). Thus, their findings were based on actual textual data saved for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Brand and Zhao (2017) show that Chinese doctor Li Shizhen discovered the anti-nausea effect of cannabis on patients in the 16th century. While it is still unclear as to exactly how or when the ancients began to use cannabis medicinally, there are numerous ancient Asian texts which describe what appears to be the prescription for using cannabinoids—and primarily the non-psychoactive cannabinoids, like CBD—“for conditions such as epilepsy, seizures, and pain” (Brand & Zhao, 2017, p. 110). Brand and Zhao (2017) point out that the exact manufacturing technique applied by the ancients is unclear but that hemp plants were commonly used as foods in ancient Chinese medicine:
By 1070 AD, the Song Dynasty text Illustrated Classic of Materia Medica (Tu Jing Ben Cao) included a quotation from a previous source titled Formulas Within a Small Box (Qie Zhong Fang) that referenced a preparation of cannabis for severe pain that inhibited movement. In the original recipe, the preparation method specifies that the seeds of cannabis are soaked in water, then the sediment is collected from the bottom of the water, stir-fried until aromatic in a silver vessel, and ground into a fine white powder; this is then boiled with alcohol and taken internally on an empty stomach (Brand & Zhao, 2017).
The ancient text indicated that after ten servings any pain would be gone. Later variations on this recipe were called cannabis seed wine (da ma ren jiu), but these variations followed a different process—a process which suggests that CBD was used in the pain relieving aspect of the medicine: “If the achenes were soaked in water with the bracts intact, it is possible that the preparation method described would yield cannabinoids, as broken resin glands from the bracts would sink in water; when this sediment was stir-fried, THC acids would be decarboxylated into bioavailable THC, which would then be efficiently extracted when boiled with alcohol, as in the original preparation” (Brand & Zhao, 2017, p. 113). The use of CBD in these medications is most likely what explains their medicinal value.
The top 20 uses of cannabis and its CBD properties in the ancient world included the following (Butrica, 2002; Lozano, 2001; Smith, 1911; Touw, 1981): Anesthetic Fever-reduction Pain relief Sore eyes Inflammation Diuretic Anti-nausea Anti-epileptic Analgesic Child birthing Anti-parasitic Ulcers Dressing wounds Diseases of the scalp Scorpion stings Stimulating menstruation Stimulating blood flow Demulcent Treating hemorrhoids Treating ear aches These medicinal uses were found in ancient China, India, Greece, Arabia, Egypt, and the Netherlands (Butrica, 2002; Lozano, 2001; Smith, 1911; Touw, 1981). It is very likely that hemp and CBD were used in numerous other ways by ancient civilizations, but for the most part it was recognized among most civilizations as having pain reducing properties. It was, in a sense the Tylenol of the ancient world.
Hemp seeds have also been used by various cultures—in porridges, for flour to make breads and cakes, and even to make hemp butter (Deitch, 2003). China was the leader in hemp cultivation in the ancient world, discovering many of its uses. As China was a society ruled by an Emperor, much of the doctrines of the ancient world were propagated by the head of the society. Though it is unlikely that the Emperors of the ancient world discovered that medicinal power of CBD, the Emperor Shen Nung in 2737 BC propagated cannabis “as a cure-all for common ailments” (Deitch, 2003, p. 9). Its usage as a common medicine, therefore, was quite likely the case in the ancient world of Asia. While cannabis is not really a “cure-all,” it is “an extraordinary non-toxic medication that relieves the pain and discomfort associated with a variety of common human ailments—and its treatments over the centuries have included “dysmenorrheal, neuralgia, gout, epileptoid convulsions, senile insomnia, rheumatism, convulsions, mental depression, insanity, uterine hemorrhage, migraine headaches and asthma” (Deitch, 2003, p. 210). The medical uses of cannabis were recorded in 80 AD in the Dioscorides Materia Medica, which was the standard book of plants that had healing or medicinal qualities and was for more than a millennium and a half.
Colonial Americans smoked cannabis for its medicinal purposes (pain relief) and it was common practice to make hemp tea or to smoke hemp. Hemp fell out of favor in the U.S. after the Civil War when the Industrial Revolution introduced new methods of making products out of petroleum (Deitch, 2003). The natural uses of hemp were suppressed in order to allow for new industries to produce and sell their products. Still, numerous early U.S. presidents were hemp smokers for its calming and pain-killing qualities—they included Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Taylor, Pierce and even Lincoln (Deitch, 2003). All of them were cognizant of hemp’s powers. As Deitch (2003) summarizes: “we know colonial Americans were aware of the medicinal properties of cannabis. It was one of the few medicines they had, and they used it as commonly as we use aspirin today” (p. 25). The common methods of consumption were to brew hemp tea, eat it, or smoke it. Today, however, the CBD from hemp is extracted and sold in oil form and may be used in a number of different was to treat ailments of various kinds.
In Modern Times
Romano and Hazekamp (2013) point out that as far as history goes, the majority of what we have to go on in terms of how the ancients used CBD has come by way of anecdotal reports. Nonetheless, these reports “have been historically helpful to provide hints on the biological processes controlled by the endocannabinoid system, and on the potential therapeutic benefits of cannabinoids” (Romano & Hazekamp, 2013, p. 2). For example, knowledge today of how CBD has a number of health-related effects, including “the antiemetic, appetite-enhancing, analgesic, and muscle-relaxant effects and the therapeutic use of cannabinoids in Tourette’s syndrome were all discovered or rediscovered in this manner” (Romano & Hazekamp, 2013, p. 2).
In recent years, more and more health care patients have been turning to alternative medicine and cannabis specifically, “using concentrated extracts of herbal cannabis” to treat their ailments (Romano & Hazekamp, 2013, p. 3). The procedure for doing this is to preheat the cannabis samples so as to “potentiate the final extract, i.e. to decarboxylate the acidic cannabinoids naturally present in cannabis plant material” (Romano & Hazekamp, 2013, p. 3). However, the renewed interest in CBD has only come about as a change in culture in the past few decades. Going back some 400 years, the modern era actually began to study the medical uses of hemp more closely. Indeed, the 16th century is about the time the West really began to look more scientifically at the medicinal qualities of cannabis. The British Parliament has even discussed this history, noting that “the 16th century saw a detailed interest in cannabis, with reports of it and its usages being sent back by many travelers to the East, and the number of possible uses given in the herbals doubled. In England, the Herbal of John Gerard (1597) recommended it as it ‘consumeth wind and drieth up seed [i.e. semen]’, and quoted Dioscorides as recommending it for easing the pain of earache and for the treatment of jaundice. Nicholas Culpeper, in his Herbal (1653), gave the same indications for the use of cannabis seeds, and also recommended the decoction of the roots, as this ‘allayeth inflammations, easeth the pain of gout, tumours or knots of joints, pain of hips...’ (Parliament UK, 1998).
For example, in 1621 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy suggested that cannabis could be used to treat depression.  About a century later in 1753 Linnaeus finally classified the plant Cannabis sativa. Within the decade, cannabis as a plant with medicinal qualities was featured in The New England Dispensatory. By the end of the 18th century it was again featured in a medical journal, this time in The Edinburgh New Dispensary.  By the middle of the 19th century, the Irish physician O’Shaughnessy was actively publishing medical material on cannabis research in English journals. He had served the British Crown as an army surgeon in India and helped to reintroduce the British public to the medical benefits of cannabis. For that reason, “in Victorian times it was widely used for a variety of ailments, including muscle spasms, menstrual cramps, rheumatism, and the convulsions of tetanus, rabies and epilepsy; it was also used to promote uterine contractions in childbirth, and as a sedative to induce sleep. It is said to have been used by Queen Victoria against period pains: there is no actual proof of this at all, but Sir Robert Russell, for many years her personal physician, wrote extensively on cannabis, recommending it for use in dysmenorrhoea” (Parliament UK, 1998). About that same time, cannabis was included in The U.S. Pharmacopoeia, and from that point on—till about the second decade of the 20th century, cannabis as a medicinal drug could be purchased from drug stores and general stores in America freely. However, when the Prohibition Era went into effect, cannabis was banned along with alcohol (Advanced Holistic Health, 2018). It was criminalized in 1937 following the end to Prohibition four years earlier.