PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM. 
PaPAVER SOMNIFERUM is an annual plant, flowering in June 
and July in Europe, and in February in India. The root is 
tapering and white; the whole plant is generally smooth, 
though sometimes there are a few rigid hairs on the upper part 
of the stem. The stem is glaucous, colored, smooth, erect, and 
round, somewhat branched, leafy, rising to the height of two, 
three, or four feet, when in a favorable situation. The leaves 
are large, simple, obtuse, lobed and crenated, and embracing 
the stem on which they are alternately placed. The flowers 
are large, various in color, and supported on long terminal 
footstalks. The calyx is formed of two smooth, ovate, bifid, 
concave leaves, that drop on the expanding of the petals, 
which are four in number, large, roundish, entire, somewhat 
undulated and white, occasionally of a silver-gray color, and 
tinged with violet at the base. The filaments are very nu- 
merous, slender, shorter than the corolla, and support ,erect, 
compressed anthers; and the germen, which is globular and 
smooth, is crowned with a many-rayed stigma. The capsule, _ 
which stands on a short pedicel, is globular when well grown, 
smooth, glaucous, from two to four inches in diameter, a little 
flattened at the top and bottom, and crowned with the per- 
sistent stigma, the segments of which stand erect and have 
an elegant appearance. The seeds are small and indefinite, 
white or gray, reniform, and very numerous; they escape 
when ripe through small openings under the points of the 
stigma. 
CHEMICAL AND “MEDICAL PROPERTIES AND USES. ae 
All parts of the Poppy, except the seeds (which are elinen! . 
tary, and not narcotic), contain a white, opaque narcotic — 
juice, which, however, abounds more in the capsules, and 
hence these are the only officinal parts of the plant. A de- 
coction of the poppy may be made to answer many of the 
purposes of opium itself, In the diseases of young children 
it is far preferable. The leaves, stalks, and heads are all pos- 
sessed of the narcotic principle. Poultices made with a de-_ se 
coction of this plant are exellent applications to assuage pain 
and allay anguish in cases of cancer, ulcers, and chronic © 
inflammations. The poppy tea may be taken in hysterics, 
painful menstruation, dysentery, diarrhcea, cholera morbus, __ 
nervous headache, toothache, earache, coughs, consumption 
and in general in any painful disease where there i is | 
pan — of inflammation and fever. eee. 
