Jacques-Joseph Moreau

Moreau was the first physician to do systematic work on drugs' effects on the central nervous system, and to catalogue, analyze, and record his observations.

Through careful observation of people's reactions, including his own, to hashish—particularly their openness to suggestions and willingness to consider new possibilities—Moreau theorized that psychoactive substances could treat or replicate mental illness in a way to help cure patients.

His 1845 studies on datura and hashish were prepared as a treatise that documented both physical and mental benefits, and ultimately led to modern psychopharmacology and the use of numerous psychotomimetic drug treatments."

("Hemp for Health" Chris Conrad p 20) Pierre Janet identified him as one of his predecessors who had recognized "the pathological role played by grief and emotion" in creating vulnerability to psychological problems.

In 1843 with Jules Baillarger (1809–1890), François Achille Longet (1811–1871) and Laurent Alexis Philibert Cerise (1807–1869), he founded the psychiatric journal Annales médico-psychologiques.