Manufacture of British Opium. 235 



secle the abominably adulterated drug with which the guardians 

 of our health are supplied from the Levant, ij-c, under that 

 name ; and so much in demand abroad, that the last advices 

 from India inform us, that whilst trade in almost all other 

 articles was in an unusually depressed state, the price of opium 

 had risen from 20 to 25 rupees per chest. The introduction, 

 therefore, of the plant which produces the article in ques- 

 tion, into the agriculture of this country, discouraged as 

 it is in the production of grain, by the existing system of corn- 

 laws, assumes an interesting and important aspect. 



In a late Number of the Edinburgh Journal, a new me- 

 thod is announced of collecting the milky juice of the poppy, 

 from the plausibility of which it is not improbable that several 

 persons in the United Kingdom may be induced to undertake 

 this business. As the specimen of opium which Mr. Professor 

 Brande was so good, upon my request, to submit to the trials 

 of some medical friends last winter, was reported to be excel- 

 lent, having had the experience of another season, added to 

 that of several former years, to confirm the complete efficiency 

 of the method and apparatus by which that specimen was ob- 

 tained, I am now ready to communicate the same to the public 

 through the medium of the London Journal of Science and the 

 Arts; and I the rather wish them to be published sometime 

 this winter, that those persons who may be induced to engage 

 in the preparation of opium in the ensuing season, from the 

 account which has appeared in the Edinburgh Journal, sup- 

 posing eventually they may not be satisfied with the method 

 there recommended, may not give up the project in despair ; 

 but may have it in their power to make trial of another method, 

 which with me has proved perfectly successful and satisfactory. 

 By means of the method and apparatus above alluded to, half 

 an ounce of liquid opium may generally be collected by one 

 person in less than the space of an hour. And I have it upon 

 record, that on one particular day in the year 1818, a single 

 individual, considerably more than 70 years of age, collected 

 no less tlian five ounces and a quarter of this fluid within five 

 liours. 



