364 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



on the Mediterranean shores of Africa not for opium, 

 but for the oil which can be expressed from the seed, 

 " poppy-seed oil." The oil is free from narcotic 

 properties. The purple poppy is still cultivated for 

 that oil in France, and poppy-seed oil is an article of 

 commerce used as food, both in the pure state and for 

 adulterating other oils. The earliest cultivation of this 

 poppy is even as remote in Europe as 7000 years, 

 for we find that the Swiss lake-dwellers of the Stone 

 Age cultivated it, and that the variety they obtained 

 was nearer to the wild Papaver setigerum than to its 

 cultivated derivative, the modern opium -poppy, Papaver 

 somniferum. How and when it first was recognised that 

 the narcotic substance " opium " could be prepared from 

 the juice exuding from the cut capsule is not exactly 

 known, but it is probable that it was not until the early 

 Middle Ages that the poppy was cultivated for the 

 habitual use of opium as a narcotic indulgence, and that 

 its earlier cultivation was, as to some extent at the present 

 day, for the sake of the oil contained in the seed, its use 

 in medicine requiring but a very small supply. The 

 ancient Greeks were well acquainted with the cultivated 

 poppy. Homer mentions it, and at a much later period 

 Theophrastus and Dioscorides do so. They call it 

 " mekon," and were aware of the somniferous properties 

 of the sap. Dioscorides, whose wonderful book on 

 plants dates from the first century of our era, speaks 

 of the drug derived from the sap by the name " opos," 

 and it is from that word that the name " opium " has 

 come. The Romans cultivated the poppy before the 

 republic, and mixed its seeds with their flour in making 

 bread. The story of King Tarquin taking the governor 

 of a rebellious province into a poppy-field, lopping off 

 the heads of the taller poppies with his stick, and then 

 turning to his visitor, without a word, but with a look 



