8
Extracted from the Dictionary of
PAPAVE R
History of Opium-eating
so mniferum.
HISTORY.
In Classic
periods.
India made
acquainted
with
Opium.
Names for it
' derived from
the Semitic.
Soporific
beverage of
capsules.
took its origin apparently in Asia Minor and was itself very likely but a
sport from P. setigerum.
We learn, at all events, that the poppy was grown as a garden plant, and
its medicinal properties understood during the early classic periods of
Greece and Rome. Homer gives us the simile of the exhausted warrior
hanging his heavily helmetted head, like the drooping poppy flower buds.
Livy tells the story of one of the last of the Roman Kings sending the
message to his son, Sextus Tarquinius, to remove the headmen of one of
the Etrurian cities. That message was symbolically conveyed by the king
striking off the capsules from the tallest poppy plants in his garden.
Theophrastus, who lived in the beginning of the third century, was ac-
quainted with a preparation from the poppy which he called µή k ώ v i o v
or the juice (òπós) of the µήkωr plant. From the fact that all nations of the
world have adopted some form of the word ó πós or őπiov for the inspissated
juice, while they often possess indigenous names for the plant, its seed or
medicinal capsules, it may safely be inferred that the discovery of the
isolation of opium proceeded from the Greeks. Subsequent writers cer-
tainly dwell with greater significance on the soporific properties of the
poppy (after the date of Theophrastus), than the earlier authors thought it
necessary to do, so that the discovery whether made by Greeks or
Arabs took place somewhere about that date. By the beginning of the
Christian Era the knowledge in opium may be said to have become univer-
sal. Virgil speaks of the lethean virtue of the plant ("Lethæo perfusa
papavera somno," Georg. I., 78). Unger failed to find any record of the
poppy or of opium in connection with ancient Egypt, but the Egyptians of
the first century A.D., used the capsules, if not the opium, as a medicament.
Pliny (Lib. XX., c. 76) pays special attention to the medicinal value of opion.
Amongst his contemporaries Dioscorides narrates with the minutest
detail the process of extracting the òπós or őπiov, and distinguishes it from
µηkώvεiov. From his remarks it may be inferred that in his time the art of
extracting the drug constituted an important industry in Asia Minor. In-
deed during the classic period of the Roman Empire, as also the early
Middle Ages, the only sort of opium known was that of Asia Minor. In the
thirteenth century Simon Januensis, physician to Pope Nicholas IV.,
refers to Opium thebaicum, although Meconium was even then still in use.
But if to the Greeks be due the discovery of opium, the Arabs most
undoubtedly carried, to the utmost corners of the Eastern countries, the
knowledge of that drug. In the first instance, they made it known to
Persia and subsequently to India and China. That the followers of
the faith of Islám proclaimed the properties of opium to the people of
India there can be no doubt, since the Sanskrit and all the vernacular
names in this country are traceable to the Semitic corruption of òπos or
őπiov into Afyún. Thus its best known Sanskrit name is hiphena
and its Hindi Afím. But direct historic records exist which also leave
no room for doubt that the poppy was not known to the people of India
prior to the Arab influence. The early Chinese works tell of the Arab
traders exchanging poppy capsules for the merchandise of China, and
its Arabic name became in the Chinese tongue Ya-pien. In the time
of the Caliphs, the Arabs certainly visited India and China, especially
after the founding of Baghdad (A. D. 763); previous to the Táng dy-
nasty the poppy was apparently not known to the Chinese. When first
shown to them its urn-shaped capsules, full of millet-like seeds, suggested
the names Mi-nang (=millet vessels) and Ying-su (=jar-millet). The
Arab doctors directed the Chinese to prepare of these capsules a soporific
beverage and medicine. Hence it may be stated that the introduction of