Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/856

Rh 792 OPIUM Formosa and some parts of Fuhkeen. Persian replaces the Malwa to a limited extent on account of its lower price ; it goes principally to the province of Kwangse. Malwa opium is reputed to have a strong flavour and biting taste, and to be more stimulating ; it is said to cause heartburn in those unaccustomed to its use, to induce an unhealthy action of the skin, and to prove irritating to the nervous system. Patna is considered mild but narcotic. Persian is also reckoned hot and acrid, and apt to cause dysentery. In some respects the native opium is comparable to the Malwa, having a coarser and more fiery flavour than the Patna, and also has the dis advantage of causing troublesome eruptions on the skin. It is said to be frequently adulterated with seaweed, jelly, oil, &c. It seems worthy of inquiry how far this difference of flavour and action may be due to the oil with which both Malwa and Chinese opiums are often prepared. The native opium is said to have the advantage over the foreign that the habit of smoking it can be broken off with comparative ease, which is not the case with the Indian drug. Egypt. The variety grown in Egypt is the same as in Asia Minor. The cultivation is carried on in Upper Egypt near Esneh, Kenneh, and Siout. The capsules are incised in March by drawing a knife twice round them horizontally. The concreted juice is scraped off next day by a scoop -knife, collected on a leaf, and placed in the shade to harden. Good samples, which are of rare occurrence, yield 9 to 12 per cent, of morphia ; but, as a rule, the plant is grown in too moist a soil, scarification is not always per formed at the right date, and adulteration is extensively practised, so that the average yield of morphia is only 3 to 4 per cent. As met with in English commerce Egyptian opium is in the form of hard, flat, circular cakes about 4 inches in diameter, covered with poppy and other leaves, but free from the Rumcx fruits usually seen on Turkey opium. The fracture is porous, dark liver- coloured, with shining embedded particles and reddish yellow points, and occasionally starchy granules. The total amount ex ported in 1879 was valued at 2310, of which there was sent to Italy 990, France 630, Greece 540, and Turkey 150. It is not now regularly imported into Britain owing to its inferior quality. M. Gastinel found that, when cultivated in his garden at Cairo, the poppies yielded 10 to 12 per cent, of morphia when the cap sules were nearly ripe, while opium collected immediately after the flowering was over contained only 3 to 4 per cent. Algeria. Opium has been grown in Algeria, but this kind is not known in English commerce. Mozambique. A company was established in Lisbon in 1877, with a grant of 50,000 acres of land in Mozambique, and certain exclusive privileges ; the cultivation was commenced in 1879 and was carried on at Chaima between the Mulo and Quaqna rivers. The ground has been sown with Malwa seed, the plants thrive well, and the capsules are larger than those grown in India. The collection of opium is made about seventy-five days after the seed has been sown, and the yield compares favourably with that ob tained in India. It is said to be mixed on the spot with 80 to 100 per cent, of a special matter known only to the cultivators. The mixture is made into balls weighing about 1 lb ; these are packed in boxes with poppy trash and covered with a layer of indigenous cotton. The yield from the first crop amounted only to a few pounds, and upon examination proved to be of moderate quality only. It was of soft consistence, brownish colour, and yielded 4 per cent, of morphia and 4* 3 per cent, of narcotin, and 40 9 per cent, of moisture. In 1884 specimens were sent to the London market in the form of spherical balls, having the size and general appearance of Malwa and evidently intended to compete with it in the Chinese market. Australia. Experiments in opium -cultivation have been made during the last ten years in the neighbourhood of Melbourne, near Bairnsdale in Gippsland, and at Drornana on Port Phillip Bay, and a few cwts. of opium have been obtained. The first specimens col lected contained only 2 per cent, of morphia and about 8 per cent, of narcotin ; in subsequent experiments opium yielding 4 to 10 per cent, of morphia was obtained. The seed, procured from Smyrna, was sown in June, July, and the beginning of August, and the opium collected in the summer months of January, February, and March. The plants attained a height of 5 to 7 feet, and each produced three or four large white flowers. The East India variety, with double purple or nearly black flowers, was found to produce only one flower and give but little opium. It seems probable that, with greater care in selection of sheltered hilly localities and rich soil for the cultivation of the poppy, and attention to the very important point of collecting the juice at exactly the right time, opium of very excellent quality might be produced in Australia in sufficient quantity to meet the local demand. Europe. Experiments made in England, France, Italy, Switzer land, Greece, Spain, Germany, and even in Sweden prove that opium as rich in morphia as that of Eastern countries can be pro duced in Europe. In 1830 Mr Young, a surgeon at Edinburgh, succeeded in obtaining 56 lt&amp;gt; of opium from an acre of poppies, and sold it at 36s. per Ib. In France the cultivation has been carried on since 1844 at Clermont-Ferrand by M. Aubergier. The juice, of which a workman is able to collect about 9 64 troy oz. in a day, is evaporated by artificial heat immediately after collection. The juice yields about one-fourth of its weight of opium, and the percent age of morphia varies according to the variety of poppy used, the purple one giving the best results. By mixing assayed samples he is able to produce an opium containing uniformly 10 per cent, of morphia. It is made up in cakes of 50 grammes, but is not pro duced in sufficient quantity to become an article of wholesale commerce. Some specimens of French opium have been found by Guibourt to yield 22 8 per cent, of morphia, being the highest percentage observed as yet in any opium. Experiments made in Germany by Karsten, Jobst, and Vulpius have shown that it is possible to obtain in that country opium of excellent quality, con taining from 8 to 13 per cent, of morphia. It was found that the method yielding the best results was to make incisions in the poppy- heads soon after sunrise, to collect the juice with the finger imme diately after incision, and evaporate it as speedily as possible, the colour of the opium being lighter and the percentage of morphia greater than when the juice was allowed to dry on the plant. Cutting through the poppy-head caused the shrivelling up of the young fruit, but the heads which had been carefully incised yielded more seed than those which had not been cut at all. Newly- manured soil was found to act prejudicially on the poppy. The giant variety of poppy yielded most morphia. The difficulty of obtaining the requisite amount of cheap labour at the exact time it is needed and the uncertainty of the weather render the cultivation of opium too much a matter of speculation for it ever to become a regular crop in most European countries. North America. In 1865 the cultivation of opium was attempted in Virginia by Mr A. Robertson, and a product was obtained which yielded 4 per cent, of morphia. In 1867 Dr H. Black grew opium in Tennessee which contained 10 per cent, of morphia. Opium pro duced in California by Dr H. Flint in 1873 yielded 7| per cent, of morphia, equal to 10 per cent, in perfectly-dried opium. The ex pense of cultivation exceeded the returns obtained by its sale. As iu Europe, therefore, the high price of labour militates against its production on a large scale. Chemical Constitution. The activity of opium is princi pally due to the vegetable alkaloid morphia or morphine, which opium of good quality contains to the extent of 8 to 1 7 per cent., the average amount being 10 per cent. Opium yielding less than this is considered of inferior grade and below the commercial standard for use in medicine. Morphia is interesting as being the first one that was discovered of the now large class of bodies known as alka loids. Its basic nature was first clearly pointed out in 1816 by Sertiirner. It exists in opium in combination with sulphuric and meconic acids. Lactic acid has also been found in opium, but is believed to be formed in it subsequently to the collection of the drug. Besides morphia several other basic substances have been detected in different varieties of opium, but only in minute quantities, rarely amounting to 1 per cent. These are narceia ; codeia, Q&quot;2 to 4 per cent.; thebaia, 15 to I O per cent.; papaveria, 1*0 percent.; cryptopia, meco- nidia, hydrocotarnia, laudanosia, protopia, codamia, gnos- copia ; also a few other bodies of a feebly alkaline or neutral character, viz., narcotin, 2 to 8 per cent. ; pseudo- morphin, 02 ; lanthopin, 005 ; and meconoiosin. Opium also contains in considerable quantity a resinoid body which is soluble in its own weight of water, but is thrown down when this solution is diluted with ten times its bulk of water ; 1 1 per cent, of caoutchouc ; a gum dis tinct from gum arabic ; pectin ; albumen ; wax, consisting of palmitate and cerotate of cerotyl ; and 4 to 8 per cent, of calcareous salts. Sugar has been frequently found in opium, but whether natural or added as an adulteration is not known. The amount of caoutchouc present has probably some bearing on the value of opium for smoking, since the Chinese estimate its value roughly by the &quot;touch,&quot; i.e., the rapidity or slowness with which a thread drawn out from the mass will break by its own weight. Of the alkaloids above mentioned only three are used to any extent in medicine, viz., morphia, codeia, and narcotin. Narceia has also been used in medicine in France. Morphia, C 17 H 19 N0 3. Turkey opium of good quality and freed from moisture contains from 10 to 15 per cent, of morphia, and if less than 10 per cent, be present it is probably more or less adulter ated. Persian opium is very variable in this respect, when of good