PAPA'VER. OPIUM, bledical Properties of. The juice of the unripe capsule or fruit of the Paperer senmuleruni seems to have been used on account of its narcotic powers from a very early period, first in the East, of which it is a native, and afterwards in the West.
As to the two varieties of the P. sommferum, called P. S. album, in which the seeds arc white, and the openings under the stigmata oblite rated, and P. S. vigrum, in which the seeds are blackish-gray, and the openings under the stigmata perfect. some differences are found in the relative proportion of some of the chemical constituents of the opium procured from them ; but the P. S. album (Paperer oilicinale, Gmelin) is the kind chiefly cultivated in Persia and India.
" The first sophistication which the juice receives is that practised by tho peasants who collect it, and who lightly scrape the epidermis from the shell to augment the weight. This operation adds about one twelfth of foreign matters. Thus collected, opium has the form of a glutinous and granular jelly. It is deposited in small earthen vessels, and beat up with saliva. On inquiring why water was not employed In the place of saliva, the answer was, that water caused it to spoil. It Is afterwards enveloped in dry leaves, and in this state is sold. The seeds of those poppies which have yielded opium are equally good for sowing the following year." Such is the account by M. Ch. Texicr, of the plan in Asia Minor. A change of seed, howevel., by obtaining some from a distant locality, seems expedient. (Dr. Eatwell, in ' I'harm. Journal,' vols. xi. and xii., 1852.) In India, the juice is mixed with oil obtained from the seed of the poppy, to hinder the rapid drying of the juice. The produce of the first excisions is of a light yellow colour; the others are fainter in odour and darker coloured. In general, all three gatherings are mixed together, and sent to market in small baskets. The quantity obtained varies not only with the soil and mode of cultivation, but also with the season and the time of collecting.
Iu wet gloomy seasons, not only is tho quantity less, but it does not keep well ; in such a case the proportion of morphia is also less. The quantity of morphia depends likewise very much on the time of gather ing : if the harvest be postponed till tho capsules begin to turn white and hard, it is generally deficient, and by the timo the capsules are mature and the seeds ripe it has entirely disappeared. It is not, as is the case of many other vegetable alkaloids, transferred to the seeds, as they are altogether devoid of any narcotic principle, the oil which is obtained from them being bland and wholesome, and abundantly used as food ; even the seeds themselves are freely eaten by birds, to which they are given (from the black variety) under the name of maw-seeds. In India and Turkey they are made into comfits, or strewed over sweet meats, like carraway seeds.
Several varieties of opium are met with in commerce, which may he noticed here in the order of their reputed excellence, the quantity of morphia contained in each being assumed as the criterion.
1, Smyrna or Levant opium, which Dr. Pereira considers syno nymous with Turkey opium, though German pharmacologists deem Turkey and Egyptian opium to bo synonymous. (Th. Martins, Phar makognosic.) " It occurs in irregular roundish or flattened masses of rariosta vises, rarely exceeding two pounds in weight, enveloped In leaves, sod surrounded with the reddish triangular capsules of several epeeists of Rsmez,such as R. eriearaEr, R. patiraria (which are employed to prevent the melees cohering to each other while the opium is soft). When first Iraportesl, the masses are soft, and of a reddish-brown colour ; but they become hard and blackish, and on this account it la t by the French opines noir. Its consiatence is soft, at least of the interior, even when the exterior is very hard. Its Instre is waxy; the taste, bitter, acrid, and persistent.