of British Opium. 79 



for small wood in lighting fires, but they are more valuable as 

 affording an excellent material for thatching out-houses, coni- 

 staclcs, Sfc. ; to which use they are applied, as I understand, in 

 those parts of the Netherlands where they cultivate poppies 

 (Oilettes,) merely for their seed. 



From the dried capsules of the eight rods of poppies above- 

 mentioned, after they had yielded as much opium as could be 

 got from them in the manner before described, I obtained, by a 

 particular process*, upwards of three pounds of hard extract, 

 which was afterwards put into the hands of a medical practi- 

 tioner for a trial of its medicinal properties, who reported that 

 he had found it more efficacious than any extract of this kind 

 he had ever used before. 



* Considering (for the reasons given in the sequel,) the narcotic sub- 

 stance remaining in them to be in the state of dry opium disengaged from 

 the cells, and chiefly adhering to the external parts of the capsules, and 

 that in this state it was of greater specific gravity than water, I conceived, 

 that in order to obtain this substance in a separate mass, I had only to 

 dissolve and wash it off with hot water ; and that, if this was done gently 

 and gradually, it would sink to' the bottom of any vessel in which the pro- 

 cess might be carried on, in the same manner as the saccharine extract 

 of malt does in the operation of mashing. I accordingly had a large 

 mashing-vat filled with poppy-heads, and boiling rain-water sprinkled on 

 them from the rose of a watering-pot, just sufficient (as I supposed,) to 

 moisten and soften the dry opium. In half an hour after, more boiling 

 water was poured on them. They were then allowed to settle for about 

 the same space of tim e, when the masJt was let run. The fluid (as I ex- 

 pected,) appeared, both from its colour and taste, to be strongly tinctured 

 with opium. It was permitted to run into the same vessel till the infusion 

 began to be sensibly weaker, when the remainder was drawn off into 

 another vessel, and the poppy-heads again elutriated with boiling rain- 

 water, till it ran off scarcely coloured. The vat was then emptied, and 

 611ed again with more dried capsules, and the last running, after being 

 heated to boiling, thrown on them as at first. When the whole had been 

 mashed and treated in this manner, the infusion was evaporated and in- 

 spissated in the usual way, and the residuum afterwards formed into hard 

 cakes in the manner of opium. By this process, I apprehend, the nar- 

 cotic substance is extracted without much ef the other ingredients ; which 

 last I look uiion, in a medicinal view, to be altogether useless. Whether 

 I am correct in this idea must be left to the Faculty to determine. 



