OPIUM. The inspissated juice of the poppy, obtained by wounding the unripe seed capsules of the PaRaver somniferum, collecting the milky juice which exudes and dries in the sun, and kneading it into cakes. The cakes of the best opium are covered externally with pieces of dried leaves and the seed capsules of some spe cies of Rumex, It should be of a rich brown color, tough consistency, and smooth uniform texture ; its peculiar nar cotic smell should be strong and fresh its taste bitter, warm, and somewhat acrid. The chemical analysis of opium has rendered it probable ttat its activity as a medicine depends upon the presence of a peculiar alkaline base called morphia, in combination with an acid which has been termed neconic acid. Opium also contains narcotine, narceine, odein, gum resin, extractive matter, and small por tions of other proximate principles. The chief countries in which opium is prepared are India, Egypt, Turkey, and other parts of Asia ; it is even cultivated in Italy, France, and England, but the climate of Europe seems to be too uncer tain to allow or its regular production. Opium is pretty extensively used, both as a masticatory and in smoking, in Turkey and India; but its great consumption is in China and the surrounding countries, where the habit of smoking it has become all but universal. The supplies for the Chinese market are derived from India and Turkey, but chiefly from the former. Indian opium is distinguished into three kinds : the Patna or that grown in the province of Bahar, the Benares, and the Malwa; of which the that is in the high est repute. The cultivation of opium in India is a strict government monopoly. Every one who chooses may, within the prescribed regulations, engage in the opi um cultivation ; but the drug, when pre pared, must all be sold to the government at a fixed price, which is said to be so far from remunerating the growers that, were it not for the advances which government are obliged to make to enable them to carry on the business, the cultivation of opium would be discontinued in the greet er portion of India. This monopoly has sometimes yielded a nett revenue of £1, 000,000 a year. This revenue has, how ever, of late years materially decreased, owing to the introduction into China of large supplies of opium from Turkey, into which it is found impossible to extend the monopoly. The East India opium is
exported in chests of 159# lbs. each. The introduction of opium into China was a legitimate branch of traffic down to the close of the last century. Ever since that period, however, the trade has been contraband ; but though the Chinese go vernment has issued edict upon edict pro hibiting the importation of the drug, the consumption of Indian opium in China has, in little more than forty years, risen from 1,000 to about 27,000 chests per an num. Such an extraordinary increase in a trade prohibited by law is attributable only to the corruption of the Chinese au thorities. At first the trade was carried on at Whampoa, 15 miles below Canton ; and next at Macao, whence it was driven by the exactions of the Portuguese ; and the principal entrepot was, till the recent outbreak of hostilities between the British and Chinese, in the bay of Lintin. The opium is kept on board ships, commonly called receiving ships, of which there are often ten or twelve lying together at an chor. The sales are mostly effected by the English and American agents in Can ton, who give orders for the delivery of the opium; which, on the order being i produced, is handed over to the Chinese smuggler, who comes alongside at night to receive it. Frequently, however, the smuggler purchases the opium on his own account, paying for it on the spot in sil ver, it being a rule of the trade never violated that the money must be paid be fore the opium is delivered. When the drug is landed, the laws are equally set at defiance in its progress through the coun try, smoking houses being, it is said, everywhere established. During the first ten years of the present century, the ex ports from India to China were about '2,500 chests. In 1821-1822, after the in troduction of Malwa opium into the mar kets of Bombay and Calcutta, the exports increased to 4,628 chests ; and owing no doubt to the greatly increased supply and lower price of the article, the exports in 1331-1832 exceeded 20,000 chests, worth more than 13,000,000 dollars ; and in 1837-1833 exceeded 30,000 chests, worth 20000,000 dollars.