EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 
345 
Opium [Ar, Aphium). 
The ufe of opium, as is well known, is carried to excefs in 
Conftantinople. Some perfons have fo long accuftomed them- 
felves to that powerful drug, that a dofe of two drams, or more, 
will have no effed in exhilarating them, or producing that 
agreeable ftupor which they feek. In fuch cafes, they will 
fwallow, in a convenient vehicle, feveral grains, to the amount, 
it is faid, of ten, of corrofive fublimate of mercury, as a 
ftimulus. 
This effect of opium, as an antidote to one of the ftrongeft 
mineral poifons, appears incredible, and would fcarcely have 
been related, but on authority the leaft queftionable. A reflec- 
tion has in confequence forced itfelf on me, which I offer as a 
query. Mithridates, king of Pontus, is faid to have fo fortified 
himfelf with antidotes, that when misfortune obliged him to 
have recourfe to poifon to terminate his exiftence, though re- 
peatedly admlniftered to him, under different forms, it had no 
effedl:. Pontus, at that time no lefs than at prefenc, furnifhed 
the befl: opium. Could Mithridates have ufed any antidote fo 
powerful ? And was not this effedt of that drug more likely to 
be known in its native country than any where elfe ? It may 
pofhbly be replied, that mineral poifons were not then in ufe, 
and that to the fmall number of vegetable ones then known, 
many other antidotes, capable of producing the fame effed:, 
might have been found. It is not however enquired, whether 
Y y fingle 
