as Syroppo di Papaveri semplici di Mesue; in the first pharmacopoeia of the London College (1618), the medicine is prescribed as Syrupus de Meconio Mesuæ.

Description-The fruit is formed by the union of 8 to 20 carpels, the edges of which are turned inwards and project like partitions towards the interior, yet without reaching the centre, so that the fruit is really one-celled. In the unripe fruit, the sutures of the carpels are distinctly visible externally as shallow longitudinal stripes.

The fruit is crowned with a circular disc, deeply cut into angular ridge-like stigmas in number equal to the carpels, projecting in a stellate manner with short obtuse lobes. Each carpel opens immediately below the disc by a pore, out of which the seeds may be shaken; but in some varieties of poppy the carpel presents no aperture even when fully ripe. The fruit is globular, sometimes flattened below, or it is ovoid; it is contracted beneath into a sort of neck immediately above a tumid ring at its point of attachment with the stalk. Grown in rich moist ground in England, it often attains a diameter of three inches, which is twice that of the capsules of the opium poppy of Asia Minor or India. While growing it is of a pale glaucous green, but at maturity becomes yellowish brown, often marked with black spots. The outer wall of the pericarp is smooth and hard; the rest is of a loose texture, and while green exudes on the slightest puncture an abundance of bitter milky juice. The interior surface of the pericarp is rugose, and minutely and beautifully striated transversely. From its sutures spring thin and brittle placentæ directed towards the centre and bearing on their perpendicular faces and edges a vast number of minute reniform seeds.

The unripe fruit has a narcotic odour which is destroyed by drying; and its bitter taste is but partially retained.

Microscopic Structure-The outer layer consists of a thin cuticle exhibiting a large number of stomata; the epidermis is formed of a row of small thick-walled cells. Fragments of these two layers, which on the whole exhibit no striking peculiarity, are always found in the residue of opium after it has been exhausted by water.

The most interesting part of the constituent tissues of the fruit is the system of laticiferous vessels, which is of an extremely complicated nature inasmuch as it is composed of various kinds of cells intimately interlaced so as to form considerable bundles.' The cells containing the milky juice are larger but not so much branched as in many other plants.

Chemical Composition-The analyses of poppy heads present discrepant results with regard to morphine. Merck and Winckler detected it in the ripe fruit to the extent of 2 per cent., and it has also been found by Groves (1854) and by Deschamps d'Avallon (1864). Other chemists have been unable to find it.

In recent pharmacopoeias poppy heads are directed to be taken previous to complete maturity, and both Meurein and Aubergier have shown that in this state they are richer in morphine than when more advanced. Deschamps d'Avallon found them sometimes to contain

1 For particulars see Trécul, Ann. des Sciences Nat. v. (1866) 49; also Flückiger,

Grundlagen der Pharmaceutischen Waarenkunde, 1873. 45.

narcotine. He also obtained mucilage perceptible by neutral acetate of lead, ammonium salts, meconic, tartaric, and citric acid, the ordinary mineral acids, wax, and lastly two new crystalline bodies, Papaverin, and Papaverosine. The former is not identical with Merck's alkaloid of the same name; although nitrogenous and bitter, it has an acid reaction (?), yet does not combine with bases. It yields a blue precipitate with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium.

Papaverosine on the other hand is a base to which sulphuric acid imparts a violet colour, changing to dark yellowish-red on addition of nitric acid.

In ripe poppy heads, Hesse (1866) found Rhoadine. Groves in 1854 somewhat doubtfully announced the presence of Codeine. Fricker' stated to have obtained from the capsules 0-10 per cent. of alkaloid, and Krause 2 was able to prove the presence of traces of morphine, narcotine, and meconic acid. Ripe poppy capsules (seeds removed) dried at 100° C. afforded us 14-28 per cent. of ash, consisting chiefly of alkaline chlorides and sulphates, with but a small quantity of phosphate.

Production-Poppies are grown for medicinal uses in many parts of England, mostly on a small scale. The large and fine fruits (poppy heads) are usually sold entire; the smaller and less slightly are broken and the seeds having been removed are supplied to the druggist for pharmaceutical preparations. The directions of the pharmacopoeia as to the fruit being gathered when "nearly ripe" does not appear to be much regarded.

Uses-In the form of syrup and extract, poppy heads are in common use as a sedative. A hot decoction is often externally applied as an anodyne.

In upper India an intoxicating liquor is prepared by heating the capsules of the poppy with jagghery and water.3

OPIUM.

Botanical Origin-Papaver somniferum L., see preceding article. History The medicinal properties of the milky juice of the poppy have been known from a remote period. Theophrastus who lived in the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. was acquainted with the substance in question, under the name of Mykovov. The investigations of Unger (1857; see Capsula Papaveris,) have failed to trace any acquaintance of ancient Egypt with opium.

Scribonius Largus in his Compositiones Medicamentorum (circa A.D. 40) notices the method of procuring opium, and points out that the true drug is derived from the capsules, and not from the foliage of the plant.

1 Dragendorff's Jahresbericht, 1874. 148. 2 Archiv der Pharm. 204 (1874) 507. 3 Catal. Ind. Departm. Internat. Exhibition. 1862. No. 742.

For more particulars see Dr. Rice's learned notes in New Remedies, New York,

1876, 229, reprinted in Pharm. Journ. vii. (2 Dec. 1876; 23 June 1877), pp. 452 and 1041.

22.

Ed. Bernhold, Argent. 1786, c. iii. sect.

About the year 77 of the same century, Dioscorides' plainly distinguished the juice of the capsules under the name of oós from an extract of the entire plant, unkvetov, which he regarded as much less active. He described exactly how the capsules should be incised, the performing of which operation he designated by the verb oπíčeш. may infer from these statements of Dioscorides that the collection of opium was at that early period a branch of industry in Asia Minor. The same authority alludes to the adulteration of the drug with the milky juices of Glaucium and Lactuca, and with gum.

Pliny devotes some space to an account of Opion, of which he describes the medicinal use. The drug is repeatedly mentioned as Lacrima papaveris by Celsus in the 1st century, and more or less particularly by numerous later Latin authors. During the classical period of the Roman Empire as well as in the early middle ages, the only sort of opium known was that of Asia Minor.

The use of the drug was transmitted by the Arabs to the nations of the East, and in the first instance to the Persians. From the Greek word onós, juice, was formed the Arabic word Afyun, which has found its way into many Asiatic languages.3

The introduction of opium into India seems to have been connected with the spread of Islamism, and may have been favoured by the Mahommedan prohibition of wine. The earliest mention of it as a production of that country occurs in the travels of Barbosa who visited Calicut on the Malabar coast in 1511. Among the more valuable drugs the prices of which he quotes, opium occupies a prominent place. It was either imported from Aden or Cambay, that from the latter place being the cheaper, yet worth three or four times as much as camphor or benzoin.

Pyres in his letter about Indian drugs to Manuel, king of Portugal, written from Cochin in 1516, speaks of the opium of Egypt, that of Cambay and of the kingdom of Coûs (Kus Bahár, S.W. of Bhotan) in Bengal. He adds that it is a great article of merchandize in these parts and fetches a good price; that the kings and lords eat of it, and even the common people, though not so much because it costs dear.

Garcia d'Orta informs us that the opium of Cambay in the middle of the 16th century was chiefly collected in Malwa, and that it is soft and yellowish. That from Aden and other places near the Erythrean Sea is black and hard. A superior kind was imported from Cairo, agreeing as Garçia supposed with the opium of the ancient Thebaïd, a district of Upper Egypt near the modern Karnak and Luksor.

In India the Mogul Government uniformly sold the opium monopoly,

and the East India Company followed their example, reserving to itself the sole right of cultivating the poppy and selling the opium.

Opium thebaïcum was mentioned by Simon Januensis,1 physician to Pope Nicolas IV. (A.D. 1288-92), who also alludes to meconium as the dried juice of the pounded capsules and leaves. Prosper Alpinus,2 who visited Egypt in 1580-83, states that opium or meconium was in his time prepared in the Thebaïd from the expressed juice of poppy heads.

The German traveller Kämpfer, who visited Persia in 1685, describes the various kinds of opium prepared in that country. The best sorts were flavoured with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and mace, or simply with saffron and ambergris. Such compositions were called Theriaka, and were held in great estimation during the middle ages, and probably supplied to a large extent the place of pure opium. It was not uncommon for the sultans of Egypt of the 15th century to send presents of Theriaka to the doges of Venice and the sovereigns of Cyprus.3

In Europe opium seems in later times not to have been reckoned among the more costly drugs; in the 16th century we find it quoted at the same price as benzoin, and much cheaper than camphor, rhubarb, or manna.4

With regard to China it is supposed that opium was first brought thither by the Arabians, who are known to have traded with the southern ports of the empire as early as the 9th century. More recently, at least until the 18th century, the Chinese imported the drug in their junks as a return cargo from India. At this period it was used almost exclusively as a remedy for dysentery, and the whole quantity imported was very small. It was not until 1767 that the importation reached 1,000 chests, at which rate it continued for some years, most of the trade being in the hands of the Portuguese. The East India Company made a small adventure in 1773; and seven years later an opium depôt of two small vessels was established by the English in Lark's Bay, south

of Macao.

The Chinese authorities began to complain of these two ships in 1793, but the traffic still increased, and without serious interruption until 1820, when an edict was issued forbidding any vessel having opium on board to enter the Canton river. This led to a system of contraband trade with the connivance of the Chinese officials, which towards the expiration of the East India Company's charter in 1834 had assumed a regular character. The political difficulties between England and China that ensued shortly after this event, and the socalled Opium War, culminated in the Treaty of Nanking (1842), by which five ports of China were opened to foreign trade, and opium was in 1858 admitted as a legal article of commerce.

5

The vice of opium-smoking began to prevail in China in the second

1 Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510. 46. 2 De Medicina Ægyptiorum, Lugd. Bat. 1719. 261.

3 De Mas Latrie, Hist. de Chypre, iii. 406. 483; Muratori, Rerum Italic. Scriptores, xxii. 1170; Amari, I diplomi Arabi del archivio Fiorentino, Firenze, 1863. 358.

Fontanon, Edicts et ordonnances des roys de France, ii. (1585) 347.

For more ample particulars on these momentous events, see S. Wells Williams's Middle Kingdom, vol. ii. (1848); British Almanac Companion for 1844, p. 77.

half of the 17th century,' and in another hundred years had spread like a plague over the gigantic empire. The first edict against the practice was issued in 1796, since which there have been innumerable enactments and memorials, but all powerless to arrest the evil which is still increasing in an alarming ratio. Mr. Hughes, Commissioner of Customs at Amoy, thus wrote on this subject in his official Trade Report for the year 1870:-"Opium-smoking appears here as elsewhere in China to be becoming yearly a more recognized habit,almost a necessity of the people. Those who use the drug now do so openly, and native public opinion attaches no odium to its use, so long as it is not carried to excess. . . In the city of Amoy, and in adjacent cities and towns, the proportion of opium-smokers is estimated to be from 15 to 20 per cent. of the adult population. . . . In the country the proportion is stated to be from 5 to 10 per cent.

Production-The poppy in whatever region it may grow always contains a milky juice possessing the same properties; and the collection of opium is possible in all temperate and sub-tropical countries where the rainfall is not excessive. But the production of the drug is limited by other conditions than soil and climate, among which the value of land and labour stands pre-eminent.

At the present day opium is produced on an important scale in Asia Minor, Persia, India, and China; to a small extent in Egypt. The drug has also been collected in Europe, Algeria, North America, and Australia, but more for the sake of experiment than as an object of

commerce.

We shall describe the production of the different kinds under their several names.

1. Opium of Asia Minor; Turkey, Smyrna, or Constantinople Opium-The poppy from which this most important kind of opium is obtained is Papaver somniferum, var. B. glabrum Boissier. The flowers are commonly purplish, but sometimes white, and the seeds vary from white to dark violet.

The cultivation is carried on throughout Asia Minor, both on the more elevated and the lower lands, the cultivators being mostly small peasant proprietors. The plant requires a naturally rich and moist soil, further improved by manure, not to mention much care and attention on the part of the grower. Spring frosts, drought, or locusts sometimes effect its complete destruction. The sowing takes place at intervals from November to March, partly to insure against risk of total failure, and partly in order that the plants may not all come to perfection at the same time.

The plants flower between May and July according to the elevation of the land. A few days after the fall of the petals the poppy head

Bretschneider, Study of Chinese Bot. Works, 1870. 48.

2 Chinese Repository, vol. v. (1837) vi. &c. 3 Addressed to the Inspector-General of Customs, Pekin, and published at Shanghai, 1871.

Pharm. Journ. xv. (1856) 348.

Am. Journ. of Phar. xviii. (1870) 124; Journ. of Soc. of Arts, Dec. 1, 1871.

6 Pharm. Journ. Oct. 1, 1870. 272.

7 Much information under this head has been derived from a paper On the production of Opium in Asia Minor by S. H. Maltass (Pharm. Journ. xiv. 1855. 395), and one On the Culture and Commerce in Opium in Asia Minor, by E. R. Heffler, of Smyrna (Pharm. Journ. x. 1869. 434).