INDIGENOUS OPIUM. 245 
opium of the white poppy than in that of the purple, and that in the 
latter it diminishes rapidly by the ripening of the capsule. It can be 
easily understood, with our confrere of L'Auvergne that this may have 
escaped Pelletier in the analysis which he made of a specimen of opium 
collected by General Lamarque. 
With regard to the therapeutic effect of indigenous opium, it is re- 
served for the eminent professors of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris to 
make it know to the medical world. Clinical experiments have taken 
place in the attendance of MM. Rayer and Grisolle upon the hospitals 
of charity and pity ; and it was the extract of opium from the purple 
poppy which was tried comparatively with the extract of exotic opium 
used in the hospitals of Paris. This latter extract, it is known, is always 
supplied by opiums containing at least 9 per cent, of morphine, the 
strength required by the ' Pharmacie Centrale.' 
Here are some passages from the report given at the Academy of 
Medicine the 28th December, 1852, by MM. Rayer, Orfila, Beullay, 
Chevallier, Grisolle, and Bouchardet, the reporters. These few lines 
will show that indigenous opium has not only an identity of component 
parts, as we have already seen, but also an identity of action. " That 
which is certain," says the report, "is that in an hundred cases it has 
been proved that the sedative effects of indigenous odium have never 
been below the effects of exotic opium in habitual use." 
Further on, we read, " Constantly indigenous opium given in the 
ordinary dose of exotic opium, has produced ease and sleep." Again, 
" There are few diseases in which indigenous opium may not be em- 
ployed either to calm pain or to produce refreshing sleep, and check 
morbidly increased secretions. 
" Your ' commission ' could not have extended their comparative re- 
searches to all cases. But it has been demonstrated for them and proved 
that the indigenous opium remitted to them by M. Aubergier, possesses 
all the therapeutic properties of exotic opium to a degree at least equal 
to that of opium of good quality employed in our hospitals." 
We have now no longer any reason for preferring to the rich pro- 
duction of our own soil, that opium so frequently adulterated even on 
the spot of its growth, and which, at the price of gold, we ask from 
oriental nations. 
It was in order not any longer to remain tributary to strangers, that 
at different periods men, jealous for the future of France, watched over 
the public health and attempted the culture of this rich substance. 
Their great and arduous labours which led the way to this new conquest 
over the East, must not be left neglected and forgotten in the recessses 
of a library, they ought, on the contrary, to serve as a polar star to the 
sailors of progress, to direct their frail barque towards the desired haven, 
and to enable others to avoid the many rocks which they have encoun- 
tered. 
In the present day the cultivation of opium may be accomplished 
