CA CRUCIFER^. 



Except that a little Malwa opium has occasionally been imported, 

 it may be asserted the opium of India is entirely unknown in the 

 English market, and that none of it is to be found even in London 

 in the warehouse of any druggist. 



As to other countries, we may point out that in 1876 the import of 

 opium (prepared) into the colony of Victoria was valued at £104,557. 



Uses — Opium possesses sedative powers which are universally 

 known. In the words of Pereira, it is the most important and valuable 

 medicine of the whole Materia Medica ; and we may add, the source 

 by its "judicious employment of more happiness and by its abuse of 

 more misery ^ than any other drug employed by mankind. 



Adulteration — The manifold falsifications of opium have been 

 already noticed, and the method by which its more important alkaloid 

 may be estimated has been pointed out. Moreover as already stated, 

 neither tannic acid nor starch ever occur in genuine opium ; and the 

 proportion of ash left upon the incineration of a good opium does not 

 exceed 4 to 8 per cent, of the dried drug. Another criterion is afforded 

 by the amount soluble in cold water which ought to exceed 55 per cent, 

 reckoned on dry opium. Finally, if we are correct, the gum contained 

 in pure opium is distinct from gum arable, being precipitable by neutral 

 acetate of lead. If we exhaust with water opium falsified with gum 

 arable, the mucilage peculiar to opium will be precipitated by neutral 

 acetate of lead, the liquid separated from the precipitate will still con- 

 tain the gum arable which may be thrown down by alcohol. If gum 

 is present to some extent, an abundant precipitate is produced. 



CRUCIFER^. 



SEMEN SINAPIS NIGR^. 



Black, Brown or Red Mustard; F. Moutarde noire ou grise; G. Schwarzer 



Senf. 



Botanical Origin — Brassica nigra Koch {Sinapis nigra L.). 

 Black Mustard is found wild over the whole of Europe excepting 

 the extreme north. It also occurs in Northern Africa, Asia Minor, 

 Mesopotamia, the Caucasian region, Western India, as well as in 

 Southern Siberia and China. By cultivation, which is conducted on a 

 large scale in many countries (as Alsace, Bohemia, Holland, England 

 and Italy), it has doubtless been diffused through regions where it did 

 not anciently exist. It has now become naturalized both in North 

 and South America. 



History — Mustard was well known to the ancients. Theophrastus 

 mentions it as NaTru, — Dioscorides as Nottu or 'Elv^tti. Pliny notices 

 three kinds which have been refeired by Fde^ to Brassica nigra Koch, 



1 See Tingling, J. F. B., The poppy- and its results to India and China. Tx)n- 



plar/ue and England's crime, London, 1876 don, 1876 (308 pages) ; Sir Edw. Fry, 



(192 p.) ; Turner, F. S. (Secretary of the England, China, and Opium, 1878 (61 p.). 

 Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression ^ Botanique et Mati^re M6d. de Pline, ii. 



of the Opium Trade), Britu^h Opium Policy (1833) 446. 



