PAPAVER SOMNIFEKUM. 67 



thretened his owne daies by taking Opium. By reason whereof, 

 physicians are growne to great variance, and bee of contrary 

 opinions as touching the use of the foresaid Opium. Diagoras 

 and Erasistratus condemned it altogether as a most deadly 

 thing, and would not allow it to be so much as injected or 

 infused into the bodie, for they held it no better than poyson, 

 and otherwise hurtfull also to the eies. Andreas saith, more- 

 over, that if Opium dooth not presently put out a man's eies 

 and make him blind, it is because they in Alexandria in 

 iEgypt do sophisticat it. But in process of time the later and 

 moderne physicians did not utterly reject it, but found a good 

 use of it in that noble and famous opiat confection called Dia- 



codium. 



" Moreover, there bee certaine ordinary trosches made of 

 poppie seed beaten to powder, which with milke are commonly 

 used by way of liniment to bring sicke patients to sleepe. 

 Likewise with oile rosat for the headach, and with the same 

 oyle they use to drop it into the eares for to mitigate their paine. 

 Also, a liniment thereof with breast milke is singular good for 

 the gout, in which sort there is great use of the leaves also ; 

 and beeing applied as a cataplasme with vinegre, they help St. 

 Anthonies fire. For mine own part, I would not have it in 

 any case to enter into collyries, much less into those medicines 

 which be ordained to drive away aged fits, or into maturatives, 

 no, nor to goe among other ingredients into those remedies 

 which are desired to stay the flux that commeth from the 



stomacke." 



Dr. Adams {Commentary on Paulus ^gineta, vol. iii. p. 280) 

 has the following remarks on the ancient history of Opium. 

 " Though mention is made of * the juice of the Poppy' and of 

 * Meconium' as soporifics in the works of the Hippocratists {De 

 Mulieribus, vol. ii), it does not appear that these articles were 

 much in use until a later age. 'The juice of the Poppy' is 

 noticed likewise by Theophrastus (Fr., 20, 85), and the pro- 

 cess of gathering this juice is briefly alluded to by him (H. P., 



