72 Svvayne on the Maiiiijadurc 



weather be settled fair, he may leave what oozes out after the 

 first scraping (provided it be not likely to drop) to be collected 

 early the next morning : when, if it should have proved a dewy 

 night, the capsules will present full employment for his scoop, 

 without the trouble of wounding them. This employment 

 must be attended to as early as five o'clock in the morning, 

 for after the sun has shone on the capsules an hour or two, 

 the juice will be in so viscid a state, that he will not be able 

 to take it up clean. 



It is well known to vegetable anatomists, that the milky juice 

 of the poppy, which they term succus proprius, and in which 

 alone the narcotic principle resides, is secreted in a tissue of 

 separate cells. In what manner these cells communicate with 

 each other has, not as yet, been determined. But without 

 any doubt they do communicate, and that speedily. For an 

 incision, or even a few punctures on any part of the capsule, 

 soon evacuates the juice from the cells, both above and below, 

 and even on the opposite side ; insomuch that no effusion will 

 take place in a little while after, by wounding the most distant 

 cells. 



Some apology may appear necessary for recommending an 

 instrument with a single blade for wounding the capsules, 

 when so many ingenious instruments, with two or more blades, 

 have long 'since been invented for this purpose. I may be told 

 that in the 16th volume of TransactioTis of the Society of Arts, 

 p. 272, are given a plate and description of a double instrument 

 of this kind, called the nehrea, which is said to be used by the 

 natives of Hindostan, for making incisions in the poppy-heads 

 That in the 18th volume of the same work, p. 175, two instru- 

 ments are described, as used by Mr. Jones, one of them with 

 two blades, and another with/owr ; and that, in the late publi- 

 cation, the Edinburgh Phislosophical Journal, Mr. Younghas de- 

 scribed a double-bladed instrument of his invention. Of al 

 these, except the last, I was fully aware, when I adopted the 

 use of a single blade. 



It is obvious, that, supposing the edges of the blades to be 

 equally sharp, two blades will require a double force to cause 



