BOOK XX. Lxxvi. 199-203 



is called opium. In this way, \ve are told, died at 

 Bavilum in Spain the father of Publius Licinius 

 Caecina, a man of praetorian rank, when an un- 

 bearable illness had made life hateful to him, and 

 so also several others. For this reason a great 

 controversy has arisen. Diagoras and Erasistratus 

 have utterly condemned it as a fatal drug, for- 

 bidding its use moreover in injections on the ground 

 that it is injurious to the eyesight. Andreas has 

 added that the only reason why it does not cause 

 instantaneous bUndness is because it is adulterated 

 at Alexandria. Afterwards, however, its use was 

 not disapproved of in the form of tlie famous drug 

 called (5ta Ka)dva)v (diacodion). The seed too pounded 

 into lozenges with milk is used to induce sleep, also 

 with rose oil for headache ; with rose oil too it is 

 poured into the ears for ear-ache. As a liniment for 

 gout it is applied with woman's milk (the leaves by 

 themselves are also so used), likewise in vinegar for 

 erysipelas and wounds. I myself, however, should 

 disapprove of its addition to eye salves, and much 

 more to what are called febrifuges, digestives and 

 coeHacs ; the dark poppy, however, is given in wine 

 for coeHac trouble. All kinds of cultivated poppy 

 are larger than the wild. The heads are round, 

 while those of the wild are long and small, though 

 for all purposes more effective. The poppy is boiled 

 and the hquid drunk for sleeplessness ; with the 

 same water the face is fomented. The best poppies 

 grow on dry soils, and where the rainfall is slight. 

 When the heads themselves and the leaves are boiled 

 down, the juice is called meconium, and is much 

 weaker than opium. The chief test of opium is its 

 smell, that of pure opium being unbearable ; the 



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