VOL. XXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 283 



wine does others: if a person that is not used to it, should take but 10 or 20 

 grains, it would have the same effect as if they had drank 10 bottles of wine. 



They say it makes them very stout and luxurious, but those that use it daily, 

 and too often, bring themselves at last to 1 or 2 ounces; and then it will not 

 have that effect, but rather the quite contrary, rendering them dull and doting, 

 depriving them of their memory and appetite, and at last making them so lean 

 as hardly to have any flesh on their bones ; and this is the use the moorish 

 kings make of it, when they wish to be rid of their great lords, whom they 

 would make to die a lingering death ; they cause such a drink to be made, into 

 which they infuse also the seeds of poppies, and give it them twice a day to 

 drink in the prison, more or less, according as they have a mind to dispatch 

 them sooner or later; so that they shall live half a year, or a whole year, with- 

 out knowing any thing of the matter. They call this drink bosta. 



This seed is little used by them in physic, though I doubt not that it might 

 be excellently well applied, because it does not only imitate the effects of opium 

 but also, if there be not too much of it used at a time, it has the same opera- 

 tion as the best wine. This seed is about the size of hempseed, and has like- 

 wise such a hard skin, that one would be apt to take it for the same. I took 

 some of these seeds, and stripped the hard skins from them, after that the thin 

 membrane that covers the plant, and observed that the matter which lay within 

 was nothing else but two leaves, with the root and body of the plant; but on 

 separating these two leaves, I found that they involved two other very small 

 leaves, long and slender, and of the figure of the former ; and I also discovered 

 that these small leaves had each of them four or five small ones, standing out 

 about each other; from whence I concluded that the tree or plant which pro- 

 duces these leaves is notched or indented. 



Afterwards I took some of the hempseed, which I thought I had well dis- 

 sected, and of which I believe I have formerly given a description to the Royal 

 Society ; and examined the said seed anew, to try whether I could discover any 

 such small leaves as I have found before in the cancie seed; when I found that 

 all the parts agreed with that of the cancie seed; at first indeed, when I took 

 the small leaves out of the larger, in which they were folded, I could not see 

 those indented parts above mentioned ; but on separating the leaves from each 

 other, I could easily perceive them ; and then appeared the two exceedingly long 

 leaves, lying so regularly within each other, that the indented parts could not 

 be discovered. I bruised a few of these little cancie seeds, and poured rain- 

 water on them, in order to discover whether there were any salt particles in 

 them ; and though I let some of the drops of this water stand several days to- 

 gether, it did not not all evaporate ; but there remained behind a thick moist 



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