380 ORD. XXI. Rheeades. PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM, 
tage in Britain. Alston says, “ the milky juice, drawn by incision 
from Poppy-heads, and thickened either in the sun or shade, even 
in this country, has all the characters of good opium; its colour, 
consistence, taste, smell, faculties, phoenomena, are all the same; 
only, if carefully collected, it is more pure and more free of fecu= 
lencies.’’¢ 
Similar remarks have also been made by others, to which we may 
add those of our own; for during the last summer, we at different 
times made incisions in the green capsules of the White Poppy, 
from which we collected the juice, which soon acquired a due con- 
sistence, and was found, both by its sensible qualities and effects, 
to be very pure opium. 
Opium, called also Opium Thebaicum, from being anciently 
prepared chiefly at Thebes, has been a celebrated medicine from 
the remotest times. It differs from the Meconium, which by the 
ancients was made of the expremed juice or decoction of the 
Poppies.* 
Opium is seiportedl’ into Europe in flat cakes, covered with leaves 
to prevent their sticking together: it has a reddish brown colour, 
and a strong peculiar smell: its taste, at first, is nauseous and 
bitter, but soon becomes acrid, and produces a slight warmth in 
the mouth: a watery tincture of it forms an ink, with a chalybeate 
solution. According to the experiments of Alston, it appears to 
consist of about five parts in twelve of gummy matter, four of re- 
sinous matter, and three of earthy, or other indissoluble impurities.‘ 
The use of this celebrated medicine, though not known to 
Hippocrates, can be clearly traced back to Diagoras who was 
‘nearly his cotemporary, and its importance has ever since been 
gradually advanced by succeeding physicians of different nations. 
Its extensive practical utility however has not been long well 
understood; and in this country perhaps may be dated from the 
4 Medical Essays & Obs. vol. 5. p. 116. 
* Hence the ancients justly deemed the ‘¢ Meconium multum opio ignavius,”? 
f Vide 7. ¢. 
