438 ON THE CULTIVATION OF 
But if one workman per commune can furnish 1 ,486 kilogrammes 
120 grammes of opium, then, for 37,153 communes, as many times as 
these 1,486 kilogr. 120 grammes are contained in the total quantity of 
opium imported into France or in 6,653, so many workers would be 
necessary from each commune to arrive at the same quantity of indi- 
genous opium. "We should have then l = 4*40, say in round 
numbers five. 
Thus, the great practical problem of the production of opium in 
France solves itself thus : Five cultivators on a average per commune, 
working only during ten hours on thirty square yards of ground each, 
will produce from the whole of France, not counting Savoy or Algeria 
and the colonies, a number much higher than 6,653, which was the 
number of kilogrammes of opium imported in 1861. 
I do not speak here of the expenses of cultivation, I shall show in 
another place that they are covered by the seed, which is used in the 
manufacture of poppy oil. Furthermore, if we compare carnation opium, 
which contains fifteen to twenty per cent, of morphine, with the oriental 
opiums which only contain from three to ten per cent, of morphine, we 
shall see that our country, released from the tribute which she pays to 
the nations of the east, could draw from her own territory a national 
and pure production of a commercial value very superior to that of the 
exotic product which comes to us almost always adulterated. 
If, then, our government in its solicitude for us, and in union with 
the agricultural societies, would take the initiative and patronise this 
new culture, there would easily be found in every commune five culti- 
vators, able each to dispose of thirty square yards of ground, and of ten 
hours of work each year to endow France with a precious substance. 
2. The Necessity of obtaining Opium in France. 
Opium is justly considered as one of the drugs most valuable and most 
employed in materia medica. 
" To recount the encomiums and to retrace the species of worship of 
which opium has been the object," says M. Cazin of Boulogne-sur-Mer, 
in his treatise on indigenous medicinal plants, "to explain the theories 
which have caused it to be considered sometimes as a universal panacea, 
sometimes as a dangerous medicine ; to point out the numerous cases 
in which it has been employed with success, and those in which it has 
proved hurtful, would be at once to give the history of medicine, and to 
take a review of the whole of pathology." 
" Amongst all the remedies which an omnipotent God has presented 
to man, there are none " says Sydenham, " more universal or more effi- 
cacious than opium. It is so necessary in medicine that it cannot pos- 
sibly be dispensed with, and a physician who knows how to administer 
it with skill may perform wonders." It acts then a most important part, 
and forms the basis of a great number of officinal preparations on the 
activity of which the physician should always be able to rely. It is the 
