Opium, a medicinal drug, the inspissated juice of the capsules of the white poppy, papaver somniferum, and its varieties. (See Poppy.) The medicinal qualities of the poppy were known in early times, and an extract from the whole plant called meconium () was employed; this was very much less active than that obtained from the capsules only, which to distinguish it from the other was called opos (), the juice, from which we derive the word opium. The Arabs formed their name afyun from opos, and from this the Chinese get o-fu-yung, which is one of their names for the drug; they also call it ya-pien and o-pien, evidently from the English opium. In the 3d century B. C. the distinction was made between opium and meconium, and very early preparations were in use called theriaca, which consisted of opium combined with saffron, ambergris, and various other aromatics, and regarded as proper presents to sovereigns and other dignitaries. It is probable that the collecting of opium began in Asia Minor, and gradually extended to other countries; it is now supplied to commerce by Asia Minor, Persia, India, China, and Egypt, while experiments in its production have been made in different parts of Europe, Algeria, Australia, and several of the United States, including California. - In the various opium-producing countries the method of collecting the drug, while essentially the same, is modified in its details.

The opium poppy is an annual requiring a rich soil, and its time of sowing depends upon the requirements of the climate; in Asia Minor it takes place in 'November, and large cultivators sow at intervals for three months, to guard against losses by insects, storms, etc, as well as to avoid having the whole come to maturity at once. The land being thoroughly prepared, the seed is sown broadcast, and covered by the use of a drag; the field is afterward laid off into beds about 10 ft. wide, for irrigation and to facilitate working; the plants are thinned and kept weeded. A few days after the petals fall the young capsules, then about 1½ in diameter, are scarified, which is here done with a knife about half way of the capsule and transversely; much skill is required to make the incision just the right depth, as if made through the wall of the capsule the juice would flow into the cavity and be lost; the cut extends two thirds around the capsule, or may be made spirally and end beyond the starting point. The scarifying is done in the afternoon, and the following morning the exuded juice is scraped off with a knife and placed in a leaf held in the left hand.

When enough of the half-dried juice is collected to form a cake, varying from a few ounces to 2 lbs. or more, it is wrapped in poppy leaves and put in the shade to dry. The opium in this condition is purchased by the buyers, who travel from one village to another and gather it in small lots, and work it over themselves, or put it into cotton bags and take it to Smyrna for inspection and final working and packing. This is known in commerce as Smyrna or Turkey opium, and is the most esteemed in this country and Europe; it comes in tin cases soldered tight and enclosed in a case of wood; each case contains about 140 lbs., in lumps varying from an ounce to several pounds. This variety when fresh is readily moulded by the fingers and cut with a knife. Egypt furnishes some opium, but of poor quality; 30 years ago it was quite common in our shops, but it is now rare. Considerable opium is produced in Persia, some of which has of late begun to be exported to Europe; it is made into cones and fiat cakes, and is of variable quality, some being largely adulterated. Chinese opium is not known in commerce.

China not only consumes nine tenths of that exported from India, but all its own product, which has increased to a large amount within a few years, and has seriously affected the importations from India. The drug is produced in various parts of the East Indies, but the principal seat of its culture is along the Ganges, where, in a tract about 200 m. wide by GOO m. long, in 1872 between 500,000 and G00,000 acres were devoted to the poppy. In some districts the manufacture is under government control, while in others it is left to private enterprise, the government exacting an export duty. The methods of collection and preparation differ somewhat from those followed in Asia Minor. Besides injuries from frost, storms, and insects, the poppy in India is liable to the attacks of a species of broom rape (prooanche), which is parasitic upon the roots of the plants and renders them worthless. When the plants are in full flower and the petals are about to fall, these are carefully collected and made into cakes about a sixth of an inch thick, and 10 to 14 in. in diameter; this is accomplished by placing them in successive layers upon a plate of iron or earthenware, which is sufficiently heated to cause the juice in the petals to exude and glue the mass together; these cakes of petals, called leaves, are sold at the government factories with the opium.

In India the scarifying of the capsules is done vertically, from the base upward, with a knife called a nutshur, consisting of three or four two-pointed blades, bound together with cotton thread, which is passed between the contiguous blades so as to slightly separate them. Parallel incisions are made at one operation, and this is repeated on the same capsule in different places at intervals of a few days, from two to six times. The collection is made the next day by means of a sort of sheet-iron spoon, and an earthen jar which the operator carries at his side. The juice when collected is very moist, consisting of a pinkish granular mass, from which drains a coffee-colored liquid called pa-sew a; this is drained off and preserved, while the more solid mass is dried in the shade for three or four weeks, with occasional turning. The dead leaves and stalks of the poppy plants are broken up to a coarse powder called trash, which is used in packing. East India opium is in globular cakes about 6 in. in diameter, and weighing about 4½ lbs.

The ball is made in a hemispherical brass cup, which is first lined with the leaves or petals to the thickness of half an inch; these are pasted together with a mixture called lewa, which is prepared from the paseica, the washings of the various utensils used to contain opium, some good opium and some poor, all boiled down to a semifluid paste; when the leaves for half the ball have been pasted, the ball of opium is placed in the cup, and the other half of it covered with leaves in a similar manner; the completed ball is then rolled in poppy trash and dried in the sun for three days, and then placed on a frame under cover and turned frequently, until the exterior becomes quite hard, when it is ready to be packed for exportation. Malwa, Patna, and Benares are the principal varieties of India opium, and there are minor ones named from the districts producing them. Although all our supplies of opium are imported from Turkey, it has been successfully produced in France, England, and the United States; and some entertain the opinion that the opium poppy can be profitably cultivated in this country both for the sake of the opium and for the seed, from which a fine bland oil can be made after the opium crop has been collected.

In Prussia opium has been largely produced and extensively used by morphine makers. In Turkey, prior to 1857, 2,000 baskets were considered a fair crop. In 1869-70 the crop was 3,150 baskets, and in 1870-71 over 7,000. Subsequent large crops have been about 8,000 baskets. The consumption keeps pace with this increased production, and better prices are obtained than formerly. In the year ending in March, 1872, the export from India was 93,364 chests, of about 160 lbs. each; the net revenue to the government from the drug for 187l-'2 was £7,657,213. The amount of opium and its extracts imported into the United States in the year ending June 30, 1873, was 319,134 lbs., valued at $1,978,502. - The chemical composition of opium is remarkable. The alkaloid morphia, its most valuable constituent, was discovered by Sertürner, an apothecary at Eimbeck, Hanover, who in 1816 announced the existence of an organic alkali, or alkaloid as it is now termed, in opium, and thus opened the way to the discovery of similar principles in many other vegetables.

Before this, Derosne of Paris (1803) had obtained crystals from opium which are now known to have been nar-cotine. The United States government does not permit the importation of opium which does not assay 10 per cent, of morphia, from a sample fairly representing an entire package. The- lumps of opium vary in the amount of morphia which they contain from 1 to 15 per cent. The amount of moisture in crude opium varies from 5 to 20 per cent. The only practical way of getting a uniform morphia strength in opium is to use it in the form of powder, made by drying and pulverizing a full case containing about 100 lbs., whereby a product having 10 to 13 per cent, of morphia will be obtained. The United States Pharmacopoeia requires that all the preparations shall be made from powdered opium, to avoid the variation in strength that must result from using the crude drug. Good opium has a very characteristic narcotic odor, to most people very offensive. It has a reddish brown or fawn color, and its texture is compact.

Opium is mostly used in medicine in the form of liquid preparations, of which the following are the most important:

It is the most complex article of the materia medica not less than twelve distinct alkaloids and two characteristic organic acids having been found among the proximate principles contained in it, besides a volatile odorous substance and many others of less importance. The alkaloids are mainly in the form of salts combined with meconic, thebolactic, and sulphuric acids. It yields its virtues to water, alcohol, and diluted acids, but not to ether. Diluted alcohol or proof spirit is the menstruum best adapted to make the most complete liquid representative of opium; it dissolves everything of value, leaving an inert residue, which if the opium is pure consists only of the scrapings of the poppy capsules. About two thirds of the opium is dissolved by diluted alcohol. Water will dissolve about one half of the opium, but it will not take up the resinous and odorous matters that abound in the drug. - Morphia (C17H19NO3 +H2O=303) is the most abundant and by far the most important ingredient in opium. It probably exists in the drug as a meconate, and partly also as thebo-lactate and sulphate, in each of which forms it is quite soluble in water. There are many processes by which morphia can be prepared from opium.

The simplest and best is the Staples process, officinal in the United States Pharmacopoeia, of which the following is an outline. An infusion of the opium is evaporated until eight parts are obtained from one of opium; this is mixed with an equal volume of alcohol and water of ammonia added in slight excess, and the mixture set aside for 24 hours, during which time the morphia separates in crystals at the bottom of the vessel. By redissolving in boiling alcohol and treating with animal charcoal, the coloring matter can be removed and the morphia obtained in colorless prismatic crystals, having nearly 6 per cent, of water of crystallization. They are soluble in about 1,000 parts of cold and 400 parts of boiling water, and in 14 parts of boiling and 20 parts of cold alcohol; they are readily dissolved by the fixed alkalies, but very sparingly by ammonia. With acids morphia forms salts soluble in water, of which the sulphate is the most important and most used in the United States. This forms beautiful white, minute, feathery crystals, soluble in two parts of cold water, and still more soluble in boiling water. One eighth of a grain is equivalent to one grain of powdered opium. In England the muriate is most used. The acetate is also considerably used in both countries.

Morphia and its salts are characterized by striking a blue color with neutral ferric chloride, and by giving a red color with nitric acid, passing into yellow. Narcotina is an alkaloid, and forms salts with the acids which are very bitter, but is itself tasteless. It exists in opium for the most part free. It is easily obtained in fine large crystals, which are insoluble in cold water, soluble in 400 parts of boiling water, and in 100 parts of cold and in 24 parts of boiling alcohol, which deposits in crystals on cooling; it is very soluble in ether, which is its best solvent. Oodeia was discovered by Robiquet in 1832, and has been to some extent used as a substitute for morphia, but is far less active. Narceia was discovered by Pelletier in 1832. It has been employed to a limited extent, but its great cost, $50 an ounce, will always prevent its general employment. The following statement of the proportionate quantity of the more important constituents of opium is given on the authority of Messrs. T. and II. Smith: from 100 parts of opium, 10 parts of morphia, 6 of narcotina, 0.15 of thebaina, 1 of papaverina, 0.30 of codeia, 0.02 of narceia, 0.01 of meconine, 4 of meconic acid, and 1.25 of thebolactic acid.

Meconic acid is of some consequence as the acid with which the alkaloids are in part naturally combined, which combination is restored in the preparation known as bimeconate of morphia. It also gives certain characteristic color reactions, which may be of value in detecting the presence of opium in mixtures. To the volatile odorous principle is due the unpleasant smell of the drug, and perhaps some of its disagreeable after effects, since the deodorized tincture or elixir of opium agrees with some persons who cannot bear the ordinary non-deodorized tincture or laudanum. - The physiological and therapeutical action of opium is represented, with no very important variations, by that of morphia, the other constituents being present in opium in so small quantity as not very materially to affect its operation. It is customary and convenient, in speaking of the action of opium or morphia, to divide it into two stages, a primary one of excitement or stimulation, and a secondary one of narcotism. A small dose of morphia produces at first a slight mental excitation, which is usually quiet and dreamy, with but few external manifestations.

The pulse is somewhat accelerated and the temperature slightly raised. This condition of tranquillity and comfort may last for several hours, or sooner or later pass into a quiet sleep, which in the daytime is likely to be short, but at night may be continued into the usual sleep. Some headache, nausea, and lassitude may follow the awakening; but these vary much with the dose and the individual. The secretions, excepting that of the skin, are diminished. Females are somewhat more liable than males to the unpleasant after effects, and nervous, excitable individuals than those of an opposite disposition. As the dose increases, the stage of stimulation becomes shorter, the sleep becomes more heavy or deepens into coma, the pulse and respiration become slow, the face pale or livid, the skin covered with a cold perspiration, and the pupil contracted. From this condition the patient may recover, or, the breathing becoming more shallow and the aeration of the blood less perfect, death ensues. Violent stimulants may arouse a person from the condition last described for a few moments, only to sink again into unconsciousness as soon as left to himself.

When pain is present, it disappears or diminishes under the influence of the drug, and the dose may be increased almost in direct proportion to the severity of the pain. But it is by no means necessary for the relief of pain in all cases to induce a condition of unconsciousness or anything approaching it. Severe neuralgic or spasmodic pain will often entirely disappear under a dose which merely excites the patient, or indeed simply restores him to his normal condition of comfort and cheerfulness. It is impossible to state with accuracy the fatal dose, so wide are the limits fixed by age, habit, and idiosyncrasy. The usual commencing dose of morphia is from the eighth to the third of a grain, although smaller doses are by no means without effect, and larger ones are often used in cases of severe pain. Children are peculiarly susceptible to the poisonous action of the drug. The treatment of opium poisoning consists in evacuating the stomach, the use of strong coffee, the application of powerful irritants, as flagellation, the cold douche, or the galvanic battery, and occasionally small doses of atropia or tincture of belladonna. The patient should not be permitted to sleep.

In therapeutic doses opium differs from morphia in its somewhat greater liability to produce headache, nausea, and constipation. Their poisonous action is practically identical. The therapeutic uses of morphia and opium are to relieve pain, cause sleep, relax spasm, check over-secretion, and in small doses to act as stimulants in various morbid conditions. The special diseases in which they may be used are too numerous to mention, but may be inferred from the foregoing. Opium may be administered by the mouth or by the rectum; morphia, in addition, by application to a blistered surface, or more conveniently and efficiently by injection into the tissue beneath the skin by a small syringe attached to a perforated needle, called the hypodermic or subcutaneous syringe - Among the other alkaloids of opium, narceia and codeia possess hypnotic powers consider-ablvless than those of morphia, and but little if any anodyne effect. Papaverina is said by some observers to have similar properties, while others have seen little or no effect therefrom. Narcotina has been held responsible for some of the disagreeable after effects of opium, but subsequent investigation has shown that it has little to do with the narcotic effect.

It is however a bitter, and has been used in India in the treatment of intermittent fever. Thebaina or paramorphia closely resembles strychnia in its action, but is present in opium in so small quantity that its effect counts for but little in the total. Pseudomorphia is interesting as presenting some of the chemical without the physiological properties of morphia. Cryp-topia produces a peculiar delirium in the dog; but it has been separated in such small quantities that its effects on man are not known. Of porphyroxia and meconia but little is known physiologically. Opiania is probably narcotic. - The use of opium as an habitual stimulant, producing exhilaration and pleasant flights of fancy or dreams, is very prevalent in many parts of the world, our own country being by no means an exception. It is a vice less easy of detection than alcoholic intoxication, which it is said to replace where law and custom have made the latter disreputable. Its evil effects are most manifest upon the nervous and digestive systems.

Among the symptoms may be mentioned loss of appetite, vomiting, pain in the stomach, obstinate constipation alternating with diarrhoea, emaciation, loss of strength, a trembling gait, pains in the limbs, mental sluggishness, hallucinations, and a condition resembling delirium tremens. The quantity which opium eaters accustom themselves to take is enormous, often exceeding 80 grains of opium or 10 grains of morphia. The use of opium by smoking and by mastication, to produce a kind of intoxication, has existed in the East for centuries; but it is not thought that opium smoking was much practised by the Chinese until the middle of the 17th century, though the drug was known to them medicinally in the 9th. So rapidly did the custom spread that in 1796 an imperial edict was issued against it; and the efforts to prevent its importation led to the war with the English known as the opium war, which terminated in 1842 by a treaty which allowed opium to enter Chinese ports. For smoking, the opium is made into an extract, and a small pill of this the size of a pea is placed in a pipe, lighted, and exhausted at a single whiff.

The first effect is to make the smoker talk rapidly and laugh at slight causes; but soon the countenance becomes shrunken and pallid, and a deep sleep of hours follows. - The most celebrated work on the effects of the habitual use of opium is De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" (London, 1822). See also "The Opium Habit," by Horace Day, with which is incorporated "Outlines of the Opium Cure," by Fitz Hugh Ludlow (New York, 1868), and "Opium and the Opium Appetite," etc, by A. Calkins, M. D. (Philadelphia, 1870).