14 
Opium  Production  in  Europe. 
'Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.  1, 1872. 
soon  forgotten,  while  in  France  it  was  taken  up  and  carried  out  on  a 
large  scale.  The  cultivation  of  poppy  increased  year  after  year,  and 
it  now  occupies  about  50,000  acres,  of  the  value  of  four  and  a  half 
million  francs,  yielding  two  million  francs  of  opium  a  year.  More 
recently  Mr.  Karsten  has  revived  the  interest  in  the  question  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  several  parts  of  the  country  trials  have  been  made  with 
most  favorable  results. 
Experiments  made  at  the  acclimatization  fields,  near  Berlin,  proved 
that  the  giant,  the  blue  and  the  white  poppy  were  best  suited  for  the 
production  of  seed  on  that  soil ;  these  three  varieties  were  therefore 
planted  on  a  well-manured  sandy  soil,  and  the  opium  obtained  there- 
from showed  all  the  external  qualities  of  a  good  Smyrna  sample, 
analyzed. 
Soluble  in  Water. 
Organic  Basis. 
Of  which  Mor- 
phium. 
Giant  Poppy. 
Blue  " 
White  " 
66-3  per  cent. 
70-r  " 
69-6  " 
13-6  per  cent. 
10-7  " 
8-0  " 
9  3  per  cent. 
8-0  " 
The  last  sample  was  in  too  small  a  quantity  to  give  exact  results. 
In  1866,  several  experiments  made  near  Berlin,  viz.,  at  Pankow, 
Charlottenburg  and  Hermsdorff,  yielded  opium  containing  10  per 
cent,  of  morphium. 
Karsten  sowed  the  seed  in  two  lines  about  6  inches  apart,  and  sep- 
arated by  about  2  feet  distance  from  the  next  two  lines,  so  as  to  al- 
low free  passage  in  gathering  in  the  opium  ;  the  young  plants  were 
kept  asunder  about  3  to  4  inches. 
About  eight  days  after  florescence  the  poppies  were  cut,  and  the 
milk  juice,  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  collected  with  the  finger  in  a 
vessel,  and  at  once  evaporated  at  a  gentle  heat ;  the  result  was  of  su- 
perior quality,  containing  66  per  cent,  soluble  in  water,  and  10  per 
cent,  of  morphia.  An  instrument  called  the  scarificator,  for  making 
the  incisions,  was  not  approved  of,  but  the  most  suitable  instrument 
was  an  ordinary  garden-knife  or  penknife,  provided  with  a  guard  to 
prevent  its  making  the  incisions  so  deep  as  to  cut  through  the  capsules. 
This  is  of  great  importance,  because  the  cutting  through  of  the  poppy- 
heads  is  invariably  followed  by  a  shrivelling  up  of  the  young  fruit, 
so  that  not  only  the  juice  but  also  the  seed  is  lost. 
Mr.  Schulze,  a  schoolmaster  at  Pankow,  commenced  in  1867,  and 
