1 2
Extracted from the Dictionary of
PAPAVER
History of Opium-eating
somniferum.
HISTORY :
Chinese.
First know-
ledge of, in
China, 15th
century.
CULTIVATION
IN CHINA
of Poppy and
preparation
of Opium ;
15th century.
Description,
Method,
Extraction.
Imposition of
Import
Duty,
Native &
Foreign
Opiums in
China
(15th cen-
tury).
del Coast opium was exported to Siam and Pegu. Here we also find clear
indications of the activity of Arab traders in extending the cultivation of
the poppy in India. The Chinese also at this time imported opium them-
selves, to be used medicinally. It is important to note this for the proper
understanding of the history of Opium in China,"
From about the fifteenth century, therefore, interest in poppy capsules is
in Chinese works diverted to opium. Wang Hsi, who died A.D. 1488, says
it is obtained in Arabia from a poppy with red flowers. He gives a minute
description of its use in dysentery, and as he was governor of the province
of Kansuh for 20 years and had thus to look after a large Muhammadan
community, his knowledge of opium must have proceeded from more than
casual report. He died ten years before the arrival of Vasco de Gama in
India. But not only does Wang Hsi describe the uses of opium, but also
the cultivation of the plant and the extraction of the narcotic. Thus, there
can be no doubt that the Chinese had commenced the cultivation and the
preparation of opium as early as the fifteenth century. Several of the Ming
dynasty writers describe the cultivation and extraction of opium, but only
for medicinal purposes. The prohibition against foreigners trading with
China (1523), consequent on the raids made by the Japanese on the coast,
caused foreign drugs to become scarce, hence directions were actually
issued for the more careful cultivation of opium in China itself, and the
value of the poppy, as an agricultural crop, was thereby enhanced and
greatly extended.
In the year 1589 an import duty was imposed on opium in common
with Myrrh, Olibanum, Asafœtida, and other goods. This was modified
in 1615, opium being rated at 1 73/100m a c e
f o r e a c h i o
c a t t i e s .
" In the work called Wu-li-hsiao-shih written at the end of the Ming
dynasty and the beginning of the present, it is stated of the poppy that it
is sown in the middle month of autumn, at noon. After flowering, the
seed vessel grows into the shape of a vase. The tiny seeds can be eaten
as porridge. Oil is also obtained from them, and the capsules are useful
in medicine ; they are powerfully astringent. When the capsules are
still green, if a needle be used to puncture them in ten or fifteen places,
the sap will come out. This should be received into an earthenware cup,
which may be covered carefully with paper pasted round the edge. Let
the cup be exposed to the sun for fourteen days ; it is then opium, ready
for use as an astringent, and restrains reproduction most powerfully.'
" Carefully weighing what is said in the passages preceding, it appears
plain that from the latter part of the fifteenth century the manufacture of
Native opium has existed in China ; it is not only in recent years that there
has been both Native and Foreign opium in this country. Let the reader
examine the various accounts of the manipulation by four different authors.
Wang Hsi's book cannot be now procured, but judging by what is quoted
from him in Li Shih-chen's work, he meant to describe the method of
Poppy culture in Arabia, and spoke particularly of a kind which yielded
the opium sap in the seventh and eighth months or later. When, however,
he speaks, as in the passage translated from the Tung-i-pao-chien, of obsti-
nate diarrhœa needing opium to cure it, and advises the physician to make
opium direct from the Poppy, in a way which he describes, he must be
speaking of a Chinese article. Li T'ing's account differs in too many
points from that of Wang Hsi to be regarded as a second-hand statement
based exclusively upon it. If so, then Li T'ing is a third and indepen-
dent witness on this subject, the fourth being the author of the work Wu-li-
hsiao-shih" (Dr. Edkins, Note on Opium)
The brief extracts given above, of the chief historic facts which bear on the
introduction of opium into China,will be found to correspond very closely with