The history of cannabis, as it relates to medicine, is filled with interesting doctors and scientists who first discovered cures for common illnesses like muscle spasms and pain. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy was an Irish physician famous for his work in pharmacology, and established his reputation by successfully relieving the pain of rheumatism with cannabis as well as stilling the convulsions of an infant using cannabis indica. After returning to England from a trip to India in 1841, where he wrote one of his first papers on the medical application of cannabis, he helped popularize its use in western medicine. An interesting account of his first experiment with hemp resin on a patient can be found at hemp.org
