78 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



Egyptian Opium is in small flat cakes , of a peculiar reddish 

 colour, and having less of the Opium odour than the other 

 varieties. 



Constantinople Opium is in large and small cakes ; the former 

 of good quality, the latter covered with poppy-leaf, less odor- 

 ous, and more mucilaginous. 



Persian Opium is in small cylindrical sticks, ahout six inches 

 long, and half an inch in diameter. Each one is enveloped in 

 a smooth shining paper, and tied with cotton; its colour is 

 similar to that of Socotrine aloes. It has the opiate odour 

 stronger than that of the Egyptian kind, but less than Smyrna 

 Opium, and mixed somewhat with a musty odour; its taste 

 is intensely bitter. It is commonly termed Persian Opium, 

 but the specimens I received came from Trebizond. It is con- 

 sidered an inferior kind (Pereira, Branded Dictionary of Mat. 

 Med. and Phar., p. 382). 



ct 



Homoe 



of using Opium. One method is to dissolve a grain of 

 good Opium in powder in a hundred drops of alcohol, to 

 allow it to remain a week at a common uniform temperature, 

 when it is fit for use ; and it is carried to its higher degrees of 

 solution by following the same methods as are employed for 

 other medicines. The other method, which is the preferable 

 one, is to use the Opium in substance, the same as all other dry 

 substances, rubbing three times in succession with a hundred 

 grains of sugar of milk ; then dissolve a grain of the third 

 attenuation in a hundred drops of alcohol, and continue as 

 before until the decillionth dilution is reached. One or two 

 globules soaked in this extract suffice to produce all the benefit 

 that can be obtained from Opium, when there is any homoeo- 

 pathic sympathy between its symptoms and those of the dis- 

 ease to which it is opposed. The effects of Opium are 

 much more difficult to ascertain than those of almost all other 

 medicines" (Hahnemann, Mat. Med. Pura). 



Physiological Effects.— The Effects of Opium on Plants : 



