ON OPIUM, SCAMMONY AND OIL OF ROSES. 
161 
LETTER ON OPIUM, SCAMMONY AND OIL OF ROSES. 
The following letter, addressed to a Commercial House in this city, [New 
York] will be found to communicate some interesting information. We 
print it as it is written. Perhaps our readers may derive some information 
from the prices given ; we can make nothing of them. 
Constantinople, May 10, 1851. 
To . Trieste, 
We received your honored letter, dated Messina, with great 
pleasure, and hasten to give you the information you desire hoping 
and wishing that both an agreeable and useful connection may 
arise from it, for which purpose we shall not fail to give your 
House direct information, respecting the articles you mention. 
Opium is found here in different qualities, the goodness of which 
chiefly depends on the conscientiousness of those who prepare it. 
The best quality coming from some districts of Asia consists of the 
pure juice, which flows spontaneously from the incisions made in 
the poppy heads, is inspissated and formed into little balls. It has 
eminently all the qualities which are requisite in good opium, and 
contains from 8 to 10 per cent, and more, of morphia. This sort 
is the most in request among the druggists in Germany and France, 
to be sold by retail to the apothecaries, but scarcely forms the 8th 
or 10th part of all the Turkish opium which comes to the market. 
Next to this is the ordinary quality, coming from the other pro- 
vinces of Asia Minor; where in preparing it, they are less cau- 
tious, partly pressing the poppy heads, in order to get as much 
juice as possible, partly scraping the juice that has oozed out too 
hard, by which certain mucilaginous parts of the plant, and shav- 
ings of the rind, get mixed up with it ; in this way that kind of 
opium is produced, which is so often sold, and at Trieste bears 
the name of Tarense opium. 
By this proceeding, of course, the morphia is lessened, and 
often in- a great degree ; but in the Chinese market, in propor- 
tion to which the consumption of the article in all other countries 
is scarcely to be reckoned, little or no regard is paid to this, 
which explains why the latter inferior article always brings near- 
ly as high a price as the former pure quality. Besides these, 
several sorts of adulterated opium are sold, some of which are 
prepared, (principally for the North American market,) by mix- 
ing in the juice of the whole plant, or other substances. The 
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