Charitos Ioannis A, Gagliano-Candela Roberto, Santacroce Luigi, Bottalico Lucrezia
CEDICLO - Interdepartmental Research Center for Pre-Latin, Latin and Oriental Rights and Culture Studies, University of Bari, Italy.
Interdisciplinary Department of Medicine, Service of Forensic Toxicology, University of Bari, Italy.
Endocr Metab Immune Disord Drug Targets. 2021;21(3):407-417. doi: 10.2174/1871530320666200520095900.
Cannabis sativa L. (C. sativa) is a plant whose use as a therapeutic agent shares its origins with the first Far East's human societies. Cannabis has been used not only for recreational purposes but as food to obtain textile fibers, to produce hemp paper, to treat many physical and mental disorders.
This review aims to provide a complete assessment of the deep knowledge of the cannabis psychoactive effects and medicinal properties in the course of history covering i.) The empirical use of the seeds and the inflorescences to treat many physical ailments by the ancient Oriental physicians' ii.) The current use of cannabis as a therapeutic agent after the discovery of its key psychoactive constituent and the human endogenous endocannabinoid system.
This study was performed through a detailed analysis of the studies on the historical significance and medical applications of Cannabis sativa by using international scientific databases, historical and medical books, ancient Greek and Chinese manuscripts translations, library and statistical data from government reports and texts from the National Library of Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation), from the School of Health Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece). We selected papers and texts focusing on a historical point of view about the medical importance of the plant and its applications for a therapeutic purpose in the past.
Through a detailed analysis of the available resources about the origins of C. sativa, we found that its use by ancient civilizations as a source of food and textile fibers dates back over 10,000 years, while its therapeutic applications have been improved over the centuries, from the ancient East medicine of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. to the more recent introduction in the Western world after the 1st century A.D. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Cannabis and its derivatives have been considered as a menace and banned throughout the world, but nowadays, they are still the most widely consumed illicit drugs all over the world. Its legalization in some jurisdictions has been accompanied by new lines of research to investigate its possible applications for medical and therapeutic purposes.
大麻（Cannabis sativa L.，简称C. sativa）是一种植物，其作为治疗药物的用途可追溯到远东地区最早的人类社会。大麻不仅被用于娱乐目的，还被用作食物，以获取纺织纤维、生产麻纸以及治疗多种身心疾病。
本综述旨在全面评估大麻在历史进程中对精神活性作用和药用特性的深入了解，涵盖以下方面：i）古代东方医生将种子和花序用于治疗多种身体疾病的经验性应用；ii）在发现其关键精神活性成分和人类内源性大麻素系统后，大麻作为治疗药物的当前应用。
本研究通过使用国际科学数据库、历史和医学书籍、古希腊和中文手稿翻译、希腊国家图书馆（斯塔夫罗斯·尼亚尔霍斯基金会）、雅典国立与卡波迪斯特里亚大学健康科学学院（希腊）的图书馆和统计数据以及政府报告文本，对有关大麻历史意义和医学应用的研究进行详细分析。我们选择了从历史角度关注该植物医学重要性及其过去治疗用途的论文和文本。
通过对有关大麻起源的现有资源进行详细分析，我们发现古代文明将其用作食物和纺织纤维的来源可追溯到一万多年前，而其治疗应用在几个世纪中不断改进，从公元前2世纪和1世纪的古代东方医学到公元1世纪后在西方世界的较新引入。在20世纪和21世纪，大麻及其衍生物在全世界被视为一种威胁并被禁止，但如今，它们仍然是全世界消费最广泛的非法药物。其在一些司法管辖区的合法化伴随着新的研究方向，以调查其在医学和治疗目的方面的可能应用。
