PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM. 73 



coarse bread. The old traveller, Sir Thomas Herbert, very 

 well describes this use of Opium : — c Opium (the juice ot 

 poppy) is of great use there also (in Persia) ; good, if taken 

 moderately, bad, nay mortal, if beyond measure ; but by 

 practice tliey may make that familiar which would kill us, so 

 that their medicine is our poyson. They chew it much, for it 

 helps catarrhs, cowardice, and the epilepsie; and what is 

 admirable, some extraordinary foot-posts they have, who, by 

 continually chewing this, with some other confection, are 

 enabled to run day and night without intermission, seeming 

 to be in a constant dream of giddiness, seeing but not knowing 

 whom they met, though well acquainted, and miss not their 

 intended places; by a strange efficacy expulsing the tedious 

 thoughts of travel, and rarely (wonderfully) for some days 

 deceiving the body of its reasonable rest and lodging. 9 * 



Pomet (Histoire des Drogues) says that the Turks subsist 

 on Opium for two or three days without any nourishment, 

 and when they go to fight they take it to excess, that 

 it may animate them, or at least make them insensible of 

 danger. 



Quincy says, " This drug is of so great consequence, that 

 there is no following the notions of all authors concerning it ; 

 many treatises having been wrote professedly about it. Some 

 have been fearful in meddling with it, but others are again very 

 bold in its use. Platerus extols it prodigiously; and Sylvius 

 used to say, if it was not for Opium, he would not practise. 

 Its most difficult use is in deliriums, which sometimes it does 

 mighty service in, and sometimes much mischief. Van 

 Helmont forbids it at such times; but so much skill in a 

 physician is required in the case.'* 



In modern allopathic medicine the use of Opium is very 

 general ; in fact, it will suffice to say that it is a chief ingre- 

 dient in almost all prescriptions that are exhibited for the 

 purposes " of supporting the powers of the system ; miti- 

 gate pain or irritation; induce sleep; relieve inordinate, 



