OPIUM 225 



Calicut in 1511, its port of export being then Aden or 

 Cambay. The German traveler Kampfer (349), who 

 visited Persia in 1685, described the various kinds of 

 opium then produced, stating that it was customary to 

 mix the drug with various aromatics, such as nutmeg, 

 cardamon, cinnamon, mace, and even with ambergris. 

 It was also sometimes colored red with cannabis indica, 

 and was sometimes mixed with the strongly narcotic 

 seeds of stramonium. One of the studies made in the 

 Orient by the writer, (1906), was of opium. A brief 

 resume is as follows: 



ORIGIN. Wherever the opium poppy grows, opium 

 of some degree of value is possible. But climate, soil, 

 value of land and price of labor, limit its area and con- 

 trol its profitable production by the tedious methods 

 now employed. Opium has been an important crop in 

 Asia Minor, Persia, India, China, and triflingly so in 

 Egypt. In Europe and North America attempts to 

 produce it failed, partly because of climatic conditions, 

 but mainly by reason of labor expense. Now as in the 

 past, its home is in the land known as Asia Minor, the 

 principal port of export being Smyrna. Hence, in 

 making our study of the drug, we sought this city, and 

 in its vicinity made our research. 



THE OPIUM POPPY. Everywhere about Smyrna, in 

 the months of April and May, a beautiful, scarlet, 

 single poppy prevails as a weed. It accompanies all 

 crops, blooms along the roadside, and seeds itself year 

 by year. This very conspicuous variety of poppy is also 

 abundant throughout adjacent countries, being found 

 in Greece, Italy, and the Mediterranean Islands gen- 

 erally. This, however, is not the opium poppy, although 

 accepted as such by many travelers. No opium poppy 



