Cannabine

Indian hemp yields cannabine and cannabine hydrate; combined with tannin the hydrate forms a staple compound.

Cannabine occurs as a syrupy, brown liquid; but the tannate of the alkaloid is a yellowish-brown powder, of a bitter taste and almost odorless.

Cannabine tannate is a substance prepared commercially by distilling Indian hemp with steam to deprive it of its volatile oil, extracting with water, precipitating the aqueous extract with lead acetate, decomposing this with hydrogen sulphide and combining the cannabine thus set free with tannic acid; or the aqueous extract may be directly precipitated with tannic acid.

By march the "blue death" had killed nearly 6,500 people in Paris, roughly 50 percent of those who became infected, and Parisian medical journals reported that hashish tincture, referred to interchangeably as "hachichine" and "cannabine," produced inconclusive results at best.