infusing the petals in hot water, and then straining 
them out, and adding sugar to form a syrup. This 
has been used as a pectoral and anodyne, but its 
virtues are very limited; its use in the hands of 
the medical practitioner is chiefly confined to its 
quality as a colouring ingredient. 
Opium, the produce of the Papaver somniferum, 
or White Poppy, has of late been not merely an 
important medicine, but one in which has originated 
the quarrel of empires. The introduction of this 
drug to China, contrary to the laws of that coun- 
try, has for many years been tolerated, and the 
consumption of it increased by the Chinese to a 
fearful extent — not less than ten-fold within the 
last twenty-one years. The quantity illicitly im- 
ported, in 1837, amounted in value to twenty mil- 
lions of dollars, a circumstance that may well 
arouse the anger of any government 
Intoxication was a sin of the earliest ages, and as 
a demon of darkness it still haunts humanity; well 
may Shakspeare make Cassio exclaim 
“ O that men should put an enemy into their mouths 
to steal away their brain ! that we should with joy, revel, 
pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.” 
Mahomet saw in the eastern nations the baleful 
effects of wine, and therefore forbade its use; his 
followers, to compensate themselves, had recourse 
to Opium. Whether any prophet or prejudice has 
stepped in to the assistance of human frailty in 
China we know not; it is, however a little remark- 
able that whilst the Turk indulges himself by eat- 
ing his portion of the narcotic drug, the Chinese 
does the same by smoking it. 
