THE POPPY FAMILY. 



523 



cious care it is one of tlie most valuable medicines to man. 

 Opium is, however, more extensively used for inducing nar- 

 cotic intoxication by smoking or chewing, particularly in 

 China, Turkey, Persia, India, and Siam, and to some extent 

 in England. This pernicious custom, when carried to excess, 

 is fatal to health, even causing madness. The capsules or 

 poppyheads are dried and employed in fomentations, and a 

 syrup is prepared from them for use as a cough medicine. 

 Opium forms one of the ingredients of Godfrey's Cordial. 

 The seeds are perfectly free from any narcotic principle. A 

 fine clear oil, nearly equal to olive-oil, is obtained from them, 

 which is used as salad-oil in India as well as on the Conti- 

 nent, where it is expressly grown for that purpose. It is but 

 sparingly cultivated in this country for its heads, the seed 

 being the maw-seed given to cage-birds. The Government 

 of China, being desirous to prevent the use of opium, 

 destroyed a great quantity, the property of British mer- 

 chants, which led to the first war with that country. The 

 result being the opening of that great empire, as also Japan, 

 to the trade and commerce of the world. The Poppy, there- 

 fore, with the Tea, Sugar, Tobacco, and Cotton plants, have 

 been important agents in changing the political and social 

 conditions of nations. An import duty on tea led to the 

 separation of the North American Colonies from the British 

 Crown, which have become the great Republic of the United 

 States. The cultivation of sugar, tobacco, and cotton in 

 America and the West Indies, laid the foundation of the 

 slave trade, with all the horrors that have attended it. 



Field or Eed Poppy {Papaver Rhoeas). Although this is 

 one of our most beautiful British plants, and a great orna- 

 ment to our corn-fields, it must nevertheless be viewed as a 

 troublesome weed. It also adorns waste banks and cliffs, 

 A syrup is prepared from the petals called Syrupus Rhoea- 

 dos," a colouring matter used in the preparation of red 

 ink. 



Horn Poppy (Glaucium luteum). A strong-rooted peren- 

 nial, growing on the sandy shores of this country as well as 



