Opium in Great Britain, ^67 
blade. It is obvious that the blades are covered with sealing- 
wax for the purpose of preventing the knife from penetrating: 
the cavity of the capsules ; and it can be easily removed and 
applied again, when the knives require to be sharpened. But it 
is proposed to have the blades mounted with a metal sheath or 
guard for this purpose, as shewn in Fig. 6. 
When the capsule is sufficiently scarified in the manner de- 
scribed, I then cut off, with a sharp scalpel, the capitellum or 
star, with a thin slice of the external rind round it. Fig. 2. and 
by this last incision I obtained more juice than from a scarifica- 
tion upon the side of the head. 
It is my method of gathering the milky juice of the poppy 
in the fluid state, that differs materially from any other that has 
been used, and it is on that account that I have been more suc- 
cessful than any other that has tried the experiment. 
In my communication to Dr Duncan relative to Lactucarium 
or Lettuce-Opium, published in the second edition of his Ob- 
servations on Pulmonary Consumption, I proposed to gather 
the opium by means of a sponge, ^ut when I began to collect 
opium in that way, I soon found that it would not do ; for al- 
though the sponge removes the juice more effectually than the flask 
proposed by Dr Howison, it cannot be again entirely expressed, 
because the sponge decomposes or separates the component prin- 
ciples of the milky juice, and the resinous part adheres to the 
sponge, and soon clogs its pores. I therefore adopted the use 
of a small common hair-brush used by painters, and known to 
the trade by the name of Sash-tool, which answers the purpose 
most completely, and with which I gathered the milky juice, 
even though some of the plants were laid by wdnd and rain, as 
well as if they had been standing erect. I used a camel-hair brush, 
but found the same objection to it as to the sponge. The common 
sash-tool, rounded a little at the point, without being ground, is 
that which I prefer. 
For the sake of experiment, I exposed myself one morning to 
a shower of rain for half an hour, while making the incisions 
and gathering the opium, and succeeded as well as when there 
was no rain, without any other inconvenience than being wet, 
and having an additional quantity of water with the opium. 
