jo6 
V 
** be further exficcated Thefe cakes are covered over with the 
Poppy or tobacco leaves, and dried until they are fit for fale. 
Opium is frequently adulterated with cow-dung, the extrad of 
the Poppy plant procured by boiling., and various other fubftances 
tc 
<c 
<< 
€C 
iC 
4€ 
which they keep in fecrefy." " Opium is here a confid 
r> 
branch of commerce. There are about 600,000 pounds of it 
annually exported from the Ganges." c 
It appears to us highly probable, that the White Poppy might be 
cultivated for the purpofe of obtaining opium to great advantage in 
Britain. Alfton fays, " the milky juice, drawn by incifion from 
Poppy-heads, and thickened either in the fun or fhade, even in th 
y, has all. the characters of good opium j its colour, confiften 
tafte, fmell, faculties, phcenoinena, are all the fame ; only, if care- 
fully collected, it is more pure and more free of feculencies. ,,d 
Similar remarks have alfo been made by others, to which we may add 
thofe of our own ; for during the laft fummer, we at different times 
made incilions in the green capfules of the White Poppy, from which 
we colle&ed the juice, which foon acquired a due confiftence, and was 
found, both by its fenfible qualities and effects, to be very pure opium. 
Opium, called alfo Opium Thebaicum, from being anciently pre- 
pared chiefly at Thebes, has been a celebrated medicine from the 
remoteft times. It differs from the Meconium, which by the ancients 
was made of the expreffed juice or deco&ion of the Poppies. 6 
Opium is imported into Europe in flat cakes, covered with leaves 
to prevent their flicking together: it has areddifh brown colour, and 
.a ftrong peculiar fmell : its tafte, at firft, is naufeous and bitter, but 
foon becomes acrid, and produces a flight warmth in the mouth : a 
watery ^ tindure of it forms an ink, with a chalybeate folution. 
According to the experiments of Alfton, it appears to confift of about 
five parts in twelve of gummy matter, four of refinous matter, and 
three of earthy, or other indiffoluble impurities/ 
The ufe of this celebrated medicine, though not known to Hippo- 
crates, can be clearly traced back to Diagoras, who was nearly his 
cotemporary, and its importance has ever fmce been gradually advanced 
Medical Obft 
d Medical Eflays & Obf. vol. 5.' p 
Hence the ancients juftly deemed the "'Meconium 
f Vide /. c. 
5-^-3i7 
?J 
by 
