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In evidence published in the Indian Hemp Commission Report, 1894 "Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie (witness No. 104), of over 20 years' service, is not aware of any ill effects being produced by the moderate use of the drugs, but he added: "If any were produced; the use would no longer be moderate, but excessive." In cross-examination Dr. Crombie stated: "I have had no experience of any diseases attributable to ganja. My experience has been chiefly in Eastern Bengal, where ganja is largely consumed."

The Forbidden Game - Brian Inglis "There was no shortage of witnesses to testify to the way hemp drugs caused insanity; a few even expressed the view that to reopen this particular line of enquiry was stupid, implying 'wilful blindness to what has been abundantly proved'. And so the evidence at first suggested. Statistics sent in from mental hospitals all over India showed that for years, hemp drugs had been one of the chief causes of mental breakdown. The foremost expert on the subject, Surgeon Lt. Col. Crombie, had already shown in an article in the Indian Medical Gazette that a third of the inmates of the Dacca hospital of which he had been Superintendent had smoked ganja; and in a very large proportion of cases, he believed, it had been 'the actual and immediate cause of their insanity'. The 1871 Commission, which in other respects had tended to play down the danger of the drugs, had accepted that their habitual use did tend to produce insanity; and the Government of Burma had just put a ban on hemp drugs largely for that reason."

The news that Brigade-Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Crombie died in London on Sept. 29th will be received with deep sorrow by all who knew him, not only in this country but also in India by the many friends amongst whom he spent so many years of his life, and where the greater part of his life's work was done. Dr. Crombie was the youngest son of Mr. David G. Crombie, of Kilminning, Fifeshire, and was born in December, 1845. After completing his early education at St. Andrews he went to Edinburgh to study medicine and graduated at that university, taking his M.B. with honours in 1867 and his M.D. degree in 1870. In 1867 he also became L.R.C.S. Edin. Dr. Crombie was a Fellow of the University of Calcutta, an Associate of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and was created a Companion of the Bath (civil division) in 1902. Dr. Crombie entered the Army Medical Service on April 1st, 1871, taking first place in the competitive examination. He, however, resigned his commission in the following December, for the purpose of entering the Indian Medical Service, which he did in the following March, again obtaining the first place in the list of successful candidates for commissions.
Arriving in India in July, 1872, after a few months' regimental service, Dr. Crombie was appointed resident surgeon at the Calcutta Medical College and in 1873 was appointed lecturer on surgery and second surgeon to the hospital. In 1874 he became professor of materia medica and second physician. From February, 1875, until April, 1877, he held the appointment of civil surgeon at Rangoon and health officer of that port. At the last-named date he was transferred to the civil surgeoncy of Dacca where he was also superintendent of the medical school, the Mitford Hospital, and the lunatic asylum. He at the same time was in medical charge of the gaol. In April, 1880, he was transferred to the civil surgeoncy of Simla, a post which he held for two years, and then returned to his former post at Dacca, where he remained until 1888 when he was transferred to Calcutta to take up the appointment of surgeon-superintendent of the Presidency General Hospital, which post he held for ten years. During this time Dr. Crombie was engaged in a large practice, chiefly consulting work, as well as his onerous official duties. He retired from the service in 1898 and on leaving Calcutta was presented by his medical confrères in that city with a testimonial expressing the high esteem and affection in which they held him. On his return to England he practiced his profession in London as a consulting physician. He was appointed a Member of the Medical Board at the India Office and filled that position for three years; he held the office of physician to King Edward VII.'s Hospital for Officers; and it was in recognition of his services to the sick and wounded officers who returned home from the Boer war that he received his C.B. Dr. Crombie lectured on the Diseases of Tropical Climates at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School and also at the London School of Tropical Medicine. He was nominated by the Secretary of State for India to attend the international medical congresses at Moscow in 1897, at Paris in 1900, and at Madrid in 1903, representing India at those meetings. Dr. Crombie was the author of many very able papers on professional subjects. Special mention maybe made of his treatises on "The Unclassified Fevers of the Tropics" and "Normal Temperature in India" ; and his articles on "Sprue," "Hill Diarrhoea," "Congestion," and "Abscess of the Liver" in Allchin's Manual of Medicine. Dr. Crombie was a most painstaking physician, earnest and conscientious in his work, an able diagnostician, and a loyal and sympathetic colleague. He was a man of great breadth of view, whose opinion on other than professional matters was often sought and always willingly given, regardless of trouble or personal inconvenience. He was a thoroughly trustworthy man, who never failed one of the many friends whom he leaves to mourn their loss, a loss in which are involved not only relatives and friends but also the great service of which be was a distinguished member. The Lancet.