Louis Rémy Aubert-Roche (26 November 1818 – 22 December 1874) was a French physician born in

Vitry-le-François Vitry-le-François () is a commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. It is located on the river Marne and is the western terminus of the Marne–Rhine Canal. Vitry-le-François station has rail connections to Paris, Reims, Strasbour ...

. He was an authority on contagious diseases and medical officer at the construction of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

. He is remembered for an 1840 publication titled ''De la peste ou typhus d'Orient: Documens et observations recueillis pendant les années 1834 à 1838, en Egypte, en Arabie, sur la Mer Rouge, en Abyssinie à Smyrne et à Constantinople'', in which he describes his medical observations in North Africa and southwestern Asia. In this book he mentions the possibilities of using

hashish Hashish ( ar, حشيش, ()), also known as hash, "dry herb, hay" is a drug made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds (female flowers) containing the most trichomes. European Monitorin ...

for treatment of the

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

and typhoid fever. This belief was based on his observance that Egyptians who indulged in hashish seemed to be less susceptible to diseases that affected Europeans. Aubert-Roche was not the first 19th century physician to mention the medical possibilities of cannabis-based drugs. In 1839,

William Brooke O'Shaughnessy Sir William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (from 1861 as William O'Shaughnessy Brooke) MD FRS (October 1809, in Limerick, Ireland – 8 January 1889, in Southsea, England) was an Irish physician famous for his wide-ranging scientific work in pharmacology, ...

(1809-1889) of the British East India Company published a treatise called ''On the Preparation of the Indian

Hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...

or Gunja, Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal''.

References

Beginnings in French Literature
by Freeman G. Henry
A biographical dictionary of the Sudan
by Richard Leslie Hill
Hemp for health
by Chris Conrad

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aubert-Roche, Louis 1818 births 1874 deaths People from Vitry-le-François 19th-century French physicians