400 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



The name opium given to the drug extracted from 

 the juice of the capsule is derived from the Greek. Dios- 

 corides wrote oj^os (Ottoc) The Arabs converted it into 

 ojiun} and spread ifc eastwards even to China. 



Fluckiger and Hanbury ^ give a detailed and interest- 

 ing account of the extraction, trade, and use of opium 

 in all countries, particularly in China. Yet I imagine 

 my readers may like to read the following extracts from 

 Dr. Bretschneider's letters, dated from Pekin, Aug. 23, 

 1881, Jan. 28, and June 18, 1882. They give the 

 most certain information which can be derived from 

 accurately translated Chinese works. 



*' The author of the Pent-sao-kang-moii, who wrote in 

 1552 and 1578, gives some details concerning the a-fou- 

 yong (that is afioun, opiun), a foreign drug produced by 

 a species of ying-soib with red flowers in the country of 

 Tien-fang (Arabia), and recently used as a medicament 

 in China. In the time of the preceding dynasty there had 

 been much talk of the a-foii-yong. The Chinese autlior 

 gives some details relative to the extraction of opium in 

 his native country, but he does not say that it is also pro- 

 duced in China, nor does he allude to the practice of 

 smoking it. In the Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian 

 Islands, by CraAvfurd, p. 312, I find the following pas- 

 sage : * The earliest account we have of the use of opium, 

 not only from the Archipelago, but also from India and 

 China, is by the faithful, intelligent Barbosa.^ He rates 

 it among the articles brought by the Moorish and Gentile 

 merchants of Western India, to exchange for the cargoes 

 of Chinese junks.' " 



"It is difficult to fix the exact date at which the 

 Chinese began to smoke opium and to cultivate the 

 poppy which produces it. As I have said, there is much 

 confusion on tliis head, and not only European authors, 

 but also the modern Chinese, apply the name ying-sou 

 to P. somniferwiTi as well as to P. rhccas. P. somni- 

 ferum is now extensively cultivated in all the provinces 



1 Ebn Baithar, i. p. 64. 



2 Fliickigor aud Hanbury, Pharmacogrnphia, p. 4.0. 

 * Barbosa's work "vvas publishod in 1516, 



