136 NAT. ORDER. PAPAVERACEiE. 



II' tlic wouiul was made in the heat of the day, a cicatrix would 

 be too soon formed. The night-dews, by their moisture, favor the 

 exstillation of the juice. 



Early in the morning, old women, boys, and girls, collect the 

 juice, by scraping it off the wounds with a small iron scoop, and 

 deposit the whole in an earthen pot, where it is worked by 

 the hand, in the open sunshine, until it becomes of a considerable 

 mass. It is then formed into cakes of a globular shape, and about 

 four pounds in weight, and laid into little earthen basins, to be 

 further exsiccated. These cakes are covered over with the 

 Pojipy or tobacco leaves, and dried, until they are fit for sale. 

 Ojiium is frequently adulterated with cow-dung, the extract of 

 ihe Poppy-^ilant, procured by boiling, and various other substances, 

 which they keep in secrecy." Opium is here a considerable branch 

 of commerce. There is from 600,000 to 800,000 pounds of it an- 

 nually exjaorted from the Ganges. 



It appears to us highly probable, that the White Poppy might 

 be cultivated for the purpose of obtaining opium to great advan- 

 tage in this country. Alston says, " The milky juice, drawn by 

 incision from the Poppy heads, and thickened either in the sun or 

 shade, even in this country, has all the characters of good opium ; 

 its color, consistence, taste, smell, faculties, phenomena, are all the 

 same ; only, if carefully collected, it is more pure, and more free 

 of feculencies." 



Similar remarks have also been made by others, to which we 

 may add those of our own ; for during the last summer we at dif- 

 ferent times made incisions in the gi-een capsules of the White 

 Poppy (growing in our garden), from which we collected the 

 juice, which soon acquired a due consistence, and was found, both 

 by its sensible qualities and effects, to be of the first quality of 

 opium. 



Opium, called Opium Thebaicum, from being anciently pre- 

 pared chiefly at Thebes, has been a celebrated medicine from the 



