244 ON THE CULTIVATION OF 
By operating with care the opium harvest may be augmented ; for 
in a plantation which I shall hereinafter point out, counting 429,000 
poppy heads, and one head by a single incision, almost circular, fur- 
nishes on an average five centigrammes of dry opium, as I have already 
several times demonstrated. 
In using the instrument which I shall describe further on, and which 
permits the action of the blades to be regulated at will, the incisions can 
be made with such rapidity that generally on an average 100 grammes 
of opium juice per day may be obtained, which diminished one-half in 
drying, gives 50 grammes of dry opium, making the price of this opium 
come to 25 or 30 frs. the kilogr. on an average. 
It is the quantity per cent, of morphine that an opium contains 
which gives it commercial value. Now, we know that the best exotic 
opims rarely contain 9*50 per cent, of morphine, that they are quoted at 
40 and 50 frs. the kilogr. ; and that that endorsed 10 per cent by M. 
Aubergier is sold at 70 frs. the kilogr. 
Then the indigenous poppy, so rich as to contain from fifteen to 
twenty per cent, of morphine, and the extraction of which costs but 
30 frs. the kilogr. can easily be tariffed at 60 and even at 80 frs. the 
kilogr. 
It is then perfectly certain that indigenous opium can be obtained at 
a price very much lower than that of exotic opiums. But it may asked, 
Is the opium gathered from poppies cultivated under our own sky, iden- 
tically the same as exotic opium in a double point of view ; both in its 
chemical composition and in its therapeutic or medicinal effect ? 
M. Aubergier, in a remarkable memoir presented to the Academy of 
Medicine in 1852, has solved the first part of this important question. 
His experiments, full of interest, were tried on the three varieties of 
poppy known under the names of white poppy, purple poppy, and red 
poppy. 
The opium of the first variety (white poppy) gave to the professor 
of Clermont a maximum title of 6*630 per cent, of morphine ; that of 
the purple poppy furnished pretty regularly 10 per cent, of morphine ; 
and lastly, the red poppy presented an opium so rich as 17*833 percent, 
of alkaloid. 
Further, our learned brother has proved the growth of morphine and 
of narcotine during the ripening of the capsule. 
This difference established between the richness of the above-named 
opiums ; M. Aubergier has sought in these opiums for the other immediate 
principles. He has singled out codeine* thebaine, narceine, m^conine, 
meconic acid, oily matter, and resinous already proved by the illustrious 
Pelletier, Caoutchouc, &c. 
He has found that the proportion of narcotine is stronger in the 
* M. M. Benard and Deschamps d' Amiens have proved the presence of this 
alkaloid in opium furnished from the red poppy of the North. . 
