the Economic Products of India.
7
History of Opium-eating and smoking.
PAPAVER
somniferum.
cultivation occurs. They are also exported from these districts all over
India, and are extensively employed by the sweetmeat-makers or in the
manufacture of certain curries. The OIL obtained from the seeds is also
largely eaten or used for culinary purposes. The narcotic, OPIUM, is eaten
in many parts of India, or a liquid is prepared by maceration in water and
then drunk. A beverage called post or koknar is also prepared from the
CAPSULES and consumed in many parts of India. But opium-smoking is
by no means uncommon, two special preparations being used for this pur-
pose, viz., Madak and Chandu. Though the expression opium-smoking-shop
raises at once the picture of Chinese demoralization, which for years past
has been flaunted before the eyes of a sympathetic public, yet were the vic-
tims and materials of the indulgence changed for those of a drinking den in
London or any other European town, the picture of the one scene might be
substituted for the other. So general is the moderate use of opium, in
many parts of India, that the comparison is practically legitimate between
the people of this country and the inhabitants of Europe in their use of
beers, wines, and spirits. It is, as already remarked, almost a necessity of
life, and so much faith do the people place in the drug that they by no
means infrequently give it to their horses when an exceptionally heavy
task has to be rendered. Barnes alludes to this practice as specially pre
-
valent with the Cutchees. Indeed, some difficulty is experienced in check-
ing a certain amount of illicit importation of the drug through the habit of
Afghan and Shan horse-dealers bringing opium with them for their horses,
the unused surplus of which they sell in India, or cover absolute contraband
traffic under pretence of the surplus provision for their horses. The Ráj-
puts and other Hindus also frequently present opium at ceremonial visits
and religious entertainments with the same familiarity, Forbes remarks,
as the snuff-box was formerly handed round the friendly circle in Europe.
FOOD -
Oil.
Opium.
Capsules.
OPIUM.
An inspissated juice obtained by scratching the unripe capsules of Papa-
ver somniferum, Linn., and allowing the milky sap, which exudes thereby,
to dry spontaneously. The bulk of the medicinal article is obtained from
Asia Minor, at the present day, as it has been for nearly the past 2,000 years.
Indian Opium is, however, the most important form commercially, being
that which is smoked, eaten, or drunk, in various preparations, by the
inhabitants of Asiatic countries, chiefly the Chinese.
HISTORY OF OPIUM, OF OPIUM-EATING, AND
OF SMOKING.
HISTORY.
Historically there would appear to have been several phases in the
growth of our knowledge of this substance. Various species of poppy are
mentioned by early writers as ornamental garden plants : the merits of the
seed, as affording oil and as being medicinal and edible, were early recog-
nised, perhaps before the discovery of the somniferous property of the cap-
sules, and certainly anterior to the recognition of the value of their milky
sap : the plant was grown, as it is at the present day, in most parts of India
and Central Asia, as a vegetable, similar in its action to lettuce : the capsules
were employed in the preparation of soporific drugs or in the manufacture
of a stimulating and soothing beverage : and lastly came the discovery of the
more potent nature of the inspissated sap. It seems probable these phases
were evolved in the order named, and that Papaver somniferum was grown in
Asia Minor for its capsules which the Arabs carried all over the East even
to China, some time before the Greek discovery of the value of the juice.
Opium was probably originally, detected in Papaver setigerum, though that
species must have been rapidly displaced by P. somniferum, a form which