144 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
cases, but it seems certain that much of the fame of 
Paracelsus at a later date was due to his bold use of 
opium. In the seventeenth century it was much 
recommended, but Hoffman thought that later it was 
abused. 
At the present day it is grown largely in Turkey, 
Persia and India, and the inspissated juice from the 
unripe capsules exported as “ ball ’’ opium, from which 
the more liquid part has drained away. 
The plant is an annual whose seed is sown in October, 
preferably in rich, dark, sandy loam, or heavily manured 
light clay, and the harvest culled some seventy-five 
to eighty days later, That grown in India has only 
recently been used in London for medical purposes, 
and undoubtedly the Turkish and Persian product is 
superior. 7 
Castor oil, a native of India, has been found in 
Egyptian tombs, and was known to the Greeks. Like 
so many medicines of the time, it was chiefly used 
externally. . It fell into disuse at one time because of a 
drastic element which, however, is not present in the 
properly extracted drug, which then constitutes an 
excellent mild purgative. 
The henbane of the ancients was probably Hyoscyamus 
alba, which is particularly recommended by Dioscorides. 
It was very much used as a narcotic in the Middle 
Ages, but fell into disuse at the end of the eighteenth 
century, and was only revived through the experiments 
and recommendations of the famous Viennese, Storck, 
Several members of the Solanacez have similar proper- 
ties, thus Datura Stramonium may have been known to 
the ancients as a poison, but Dioscorides undoubtedly 
