the Economic Products of India.
I I
and of Opium-smoking.
PAPAVER
somniferum.
HISTORY :
Chinese.
Ying-su or
Jar-Millet.
SUNG
DYNASTY
1057 A.D.
Red and
White
Flowered.
12th cen-
tury.
Preparation
from Poppies.
YUAN
DYNASTY
(13th
century).
MING
DYNASTY
(15th,
16th, &
part of 17th
centuries).
Chinese
Traders.
Advent of the
P Portuguese ,
1948 A.D.
The Chinese
import
Opium.
Poppy grown
in India in the
16th century.
cal work K`ai-pao-pén-ts'ao should be prepared. In that work the poppy
is called ying-tzǔ-su, arid the seeds have medicinal virtues given them.
The name ying-su means " jar-millet." About this same period a poet
speaks of the poppy as being eaten like the vegetables of spring. Its
seeds are like autumn millet. When ground they yield a sap like cow's
milk ; when boiled they become a drink fit fur Buddha.
The Emperor Jên Tsung ordered the compilation of a second great
medical work, and for this purpose the magistrates were directed to fur-
nish the compiler Su Sung with all information regarding drugs. In that
work (which appeared in 1057) it is stated " the poppy is found every-
where. Many persons cultivate it as an ornamental flower. There are two
kinds, one with red flowers and another with white." As pointed out by
Dr. Edkins it is safe to infer from that statement that, though the name
by which opium was subsequently known to the Chinese, had not then
found its way to that country, the two chief forms of the plant (red and white),
which afford the drug, were widely cultivated in the eleventh century. Lin
Hung in the twelfth century is the first Chinese author who definitely
alludes to the preparations of the milk from poppy heads. A poem of Hsieh
K`o written in the Sung dynasty speaks of the white flowers as resembling
snow, but that author says the seeds are black. It is customary to read,
at the present day, that the white-flowered form has white, and the red-
flowered black, seeds. Most of the Sung dynasty medical writers and from
them downwards extol the merits of poppy capsules in the treatment of
dysentery, especially when combined with astringent drugs. Thus Wang
Shih in his work I-chien-fang says their action in dysentery is simply
magical. In the Yuan dynasty a medical author alludes to the prepara-
tions of the poppy capsule as " killing like a knife," hence the true opium-
yielding plant must have been employed.
During the Ming dynasty, which lasted during the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and part of the seventeenth centuries, the Chinese trade with India,
Arabia, and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago greatly increased, and
the extension of the Mongol Empire to Persia also helped to facilitate
intercourse with China. Commenting on this subject Dr. Edkins says,
" Cheng Ho, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to all important
seaports from Canton to Aden, succeeded so well on his first voyage that
he was repeatedly despatched afterwards, and brought back a fairly
minute account of the places he visited. He was in diplomatic commu-
nication with the chief persons in authority in Aden and some other Arabian
ports, in Hormu on the Persian Gulf, in several cities of India, such
as Goa, Cochin, Quilon, and Calicut, as well as other centres of trade
nearer home. Can we wonder that all the principal exports in those coun-
tries became known to the merchants of Canton and Amoy ? They were
then probably, next to the Arabs, the chief traders in the Indian seas.
" When the Portuguese appeared unexpectedly at Cochin in 1498, they
commenced at once a career of conquest, and quickly made themselves
masters of Aden, Hormuz, Goa, Cochin, Calicut, Malacca, and many
other cities. With military prestige they joined great activity in com-
merce, and became the chief merchants in the East. At this time, as we
learn from Barbosa, opium was among the articles brought to Malacca
by Arabs and Gentile merchants, to exchange for the cargoes of Chinese
junks. He also states that opium was taken from Arabia to Calicut, and
from Cambay to the same place, the Arabian being one-third higher in price
than the Cambay. The opium exported from this seaport may be
assumed to have been manufactured in Malwa, which lies quite near to it.
" The Arabs, then, had begun to grow opium in India in the sixteenth
century. In addition to this we are told that from places on the Coroman-