214 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



Aden, Arabia, coming thereto by caravan from the 

 interior of Arabia, as well as across the Red Sea from 

 Somali Land, Africa. The surprisingly large amounts 

 of bees' wax entering Aden (1906) testified to the lux- 

 uriance of the flora of Somali Land, and perhaps to the 

 fertility of the unexplored valleys of Arabia as well. 

 The delicious flavor of the honey of Greece, collected 

 in the mountains, has never been paralleled in our ex- 

 perience. The domestic record of honey is lost in an- 

 tiquity, it being mentioned in many early works, includ- 

 ing both the New and the Old Testaments, and in such 

 Oriental works as the Arabian Nights. (88). In the 

 making of confectionery and in domestic empirical 

 medicine, honey has of course been a constant and a 

 natural sweetener. Certain kinds of honey, such as that 

 made from the opium poppy, ("mad honey"), or from 

 the flowers of the wild jasmine, possess more or less 

 narcotic action, which quality has never yet been in- 

 tentionally utilized in medicine. To a Drug Treatise, 

 Opium and Its Compounds, (388c), 1908, the writer 

 contributed as follows: 



"MAD HONEY." In the flowering season of the 

 opium poppy, bees make a honey possessed of narcotic 

 qualities, known as "Mad Honey." Partakers of it 

 wander aimlessly about, talk incoherently, and appear 

 crazy. It is not a soporific, seemingly having quite dif- 

 ferent qualities from morphine. That the affection is 

 not serious, however, is evidenced by the fact that in 

 Harput, Turkey, Mrs. Thomas H. Norton, wife of the 

 American consul, informed me that when she inquired 

 what possessed a man she observed under its influence, 

 the reply was that he was "Honey Mad." 



Such compounds as honey of rose, honey of borax 



