#192 China, India, and Egypt: The Ancient Roots of Cannabis Medicine
#192 China, India, and Egypt: The Ancient Roots of Cannabis Medicine
Thousands of years before anyone measured THC in a lab, physicians in China, India, and Egypt were already prescribing it for pain, inflammation, and a range of ailments that wouldn't look out of place on a modern pharmacy shelf.
None of them considered it recreational. To them, it was medicine in the most fundamental sense and something you took to heal.
China: the first prescription
The earliest written record comes from China, and it's wrapped in legend. Cannabis appears in the Shennong Bencaojing, a foundational text of Chinese herbal medicine attributed to Emperor Shen Nung, the mythical "Divine Farmer" said to have tasted hundreds of plants to test their effects. The emperor may be folklore, but the pharmacopeia is real.
Compiled roughly two thousand years ago from much older knowledge, it lists ma, cannabis, as a treatment for rheumatism, gout, malaria, and, believe it or not, absent-mindedness.
The Chinese were also among the first to observe what science would later confirm: that male and female plants are not the same. Their approach to cannabis was practical and deliberate. Hemp fibre became rope and cloth, the seeds were eaten, and the flowering tops were used as medicine.
Hua Tuo was a second-century surgeon said to have performed operations that seem impossible for his time. His anesthetic of choice was mafeisan (cannabis powder dissolved in wine) administered to patients before he made his incisions. Whether it worked exactly as described, we can't say for certain. But the intent is clear: nearly two thousand years ago, someone was reaching for this plant to spare a patient from pain.
India: medicine woven into daily life
If China gave cannabis its first prescription, India gave it a home. Here the plant never sat in a separate box marked "medicine." It was food, ritual, and remedy all at once, and it still is.
Cannabis appears in the Atharvaveda (one of Hinduism's four sacred texts) where it's listed among a small group of plants believed to relieve anxiety and uplift the spirit. From there, it weaves its way into Ayurveda, India's traditional system of medicine, where it's known by names like bhang and vijaya.
Ayurvedic physicians prescribed cannabis to stimulate appetite, settle the stomach, relieve pain, and aid sleep. The classical text attributed to Sushruta recommended it for phlegm and diarrhea, remedies that were part of a medical tradition serving millions of people across generations.
Part of why cannabis embedded so deeply in India is that its medicine and its spiritual life were never fully separate. The plant is associated with Shiva, and preparations like bhang, a drink ground from leaves and mixed with milk and spices, are still consumed during festivals such as Holi.
Egypt: the plant on the papyrus
The Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical scroll dating to around 1550 BCE, is one of the oldest surviving records of its kind. Most scholars identify one of its listed ingredients, shemshemet, as cannabis.
Rather than smoking, the papyri describe cannabis ground with other ingredients and applied topically to inflammation, used to treat sore eyes, or ease the pain of childbirth. It was practical medicine: mixed into salves and administered directly to the body.
The texts aren't the only evidence. Traces of cannabis have been found at Egyptian archaeological sites and on mummified remains, confirming the plant was a genuine presence in the ancient Nile world. For a civilization known for its meticulous record-keeping, the inclusion of cannabis in these texts suggests it had earned a place in the medical toolkit.
What the old physicians got right
Separated by mountains, deserts, and centuries, physicians who never crossed paths kept reaching for the same plant and using it to treat pain, inflammation, poor appetite, and sleeplessness. They didn't know why it worked. What they had instead was careful observation, passed down through generations and committed to writing. In many ways, modern research is still catching up to what these ancient physicians already knew.
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