VARIETIES. 
267 
This  water  is  used  for  like  purposes  with  the  preceding,  but  is 
more  chalybeate.  The  details  of  the  therapeutic  properties  and 
application  of  these  waters  will  be  found  in  the  Stethoscope  for 
March, "1853,  page  148-154. 
b  arte  tics. 
Sketch  of  the  Opium  Trade,  as  carrried  on  between  India  and  China.  By 
Nathan  Allen,  M,  D.,  Lowell,  Massachusetts. — Opium,  as  is  well  known, 
is  the  production  of  the  plant  Papaver  somniferum,  called  in  English  the 
Poppy.  This  plant  was  originally  a  native  of  Persia,  but  is  now  found 
growing  as  an  ornamental  plant  in  gardens  throughout  the  civilized  world. 
It  is  most  extensively  cultivated  in  India,  where  it  is  estimated  that  more 
than  100,000  acres  of  the  rich  plains  of  that  country  are  occupied  for  this 
purpose,  giving  employment  to  many  thousands  of  men,  women,  and  child- 
ren. Its  cultivation  throughout  is  very  simple.  The  seed  is  sown  in  No- 
vember, and  the  juice  is  collected  during  a  period  of  about  six  weeks  in 
February  and  March.  The  falling  of  the  flowers  from  the  plant  is  the 
signal  for  making  incisions,  which  is  done  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  with 
hooked  knives,  in  a  circular  manner,  around  the  capsules.  From  these  in- 
cisions a  white  milky  juice  exudes,  which  is  concreted  into  a  dark  brown 
mass  by  the  heat  of  the  next  clay's  sun  ;  and  this  being  scraped  off  every 
evening  as  the  plant  begins  to  exude,  it  constitutes  opium  in  its  crude  state. 
India,  it  is  said,  produces  sixty  thousand  chests  of  opium  annually,  each 
chest  varying  in  weight  from  125  to  140  pounds. 
Two  of  the  principal  localities  for  the  cultivation  of  this  drug  in  Bengal 
are  subject  to  the  East  India  Company,  and  the  manufacture  and  traffic  in 
it  is  a  strict  monopoly  of  the  government.  In  the  others  there  is  a  most 
oppressive  system  of  espionage  established  over  the  natives,  to  an  extent 
which  throws  the  control  of  the  traffic  into  the  hands  of  the  same  company. 
On  that  which  was  raised  in  Malwa,  a  province  lying  in  the  western  part 
of  India,  beyond  the  East  India  Company's  control,  and  which,  in  order  to 
reach  Bombay,  the  principal  market,  has  to  pass  through  certain  territories 
of  the  Company,  a  transit  duty  of  400  rupees  is  levied.  The  income  from 
this  tax  in  184G  was  £1,000,000,  which,  with  the  revenue  received  the  same 
year  at  Calcutta,  from  the  article,  makes  the  sum  total  of  income  to  the 
Company  from  it  -63,000,000. 
The  idea  of  sending  opium  from  Bengal  to  China  originated  in  1767. 
From  this  time  to  1794  the  trade  in  it  met  with  but  poor  success.  In  the 
latter  year  the  English  succeeded  in  stationing  one  of  their  ships  laden 
