According to Dr. Eatwell, the grosser impurities usually mixed with the drug to increase its weight are mud, sand, powdered charcoal, soot, cow dung, pounded poppy petals, and pounded seeds of various descriptions. All these substances are readily discoverable in breaking up the drug in cold water, decanting the lighter portion, and examining the sediment. Flour is a very favourite article of adulteration, but is readily detected. Opium so adulterated becomes sour, breaks with a short ragged fracture, the edges of which are dull, and not pink and translucent as they should be. The farina of the boiled potato is not unfrequently made use of; ghee and ghour (an impure treacle) are also occasionally used, as being articles at the command of most of the cultivators. Their presence is revealed by the peculiar odour and consistence which they impart to the drug. In addition to the above, a variety of vegetable juices, extracts, pulps, and colouring matters are occasionally fraudulently mixed with the opium, such as the inspissated juice of the prickly pear, the extracts prepared from the tobacco plant, the thorn apple, and the Indian hemp. The gummy exudations from various plants are frequently used; and of pulps, the most commonly employed are those of the tamarind, and of the Bael fruit. To impart colour to the drug various substances are employed, as catechu, turmeric, the powdered flowers of the mowha tree, &c. Here is a list long enough to satisfy any antiquarian, containing delicacies of all kinds, the essence of which would improve any soothing syrup or Godfrey’s cordial, with which, under the name of opium, they may be incorporated, whether they may consist of tobacco juice, cow dung, or bad treacle.
Let us still enlarge the collection from the experience of Dr. Normandy, eminent in chemical analysis—“Opium is often met with in commerce from which the morphine has been extracted; on the other hand, this valuable drug is often found adulterated with starch, water, Spanish liquorice, lactucarium, extract of poppy leaves, of the sea-side poppy, and other vegetable extracts, mucilage of gum tragacanth, or other gums, clay, sand, gravel. Often the opium is mixed in Asia and Egypt, when fresh and soft, with finely bruised grapes, from which the stones have been removed; sometimes also a mixture, fabricated by bruising the exterior skins of the capsules and stalks of the poppy together with the white of eggs, in a stone mortar, is added in certain proportions to the opium. In fact, this most valuable drug, certainly one of the most important, and most frequently used in medicine, is also one of the most extensively adulterated.”
Dr. Landerer has described an adulteration of a sample of opium obtained direct from Smyrna; it consisted of salep powder in large proportions, and he was afterwards informed that this is a very common adulteration, practised in order to make the opium harder, and to hasten the process of drying. Dr. Pereira speaks of an opium which contained a gelatiniform substance, and Mr. Morson met with opium in which a similar substance was present. Dr. Landerer also states that the extract obtained by boiling the poppy plants is commonly added to Smyrna opium.
Dr. Hassell found “that out of twenty-three samples of opium analysed, nineteen were adulterated, and four only genuine, many of these as shown by the microscope, being adulterated to a large extent; the prevailing adulterations being with poppy capsules and wheat flour,” in addition to which adulteration two samples of Smyrna opium, and two of Egyptian opium were adulterated with sand, sugar, and gum.
From the analysis of forty samples of powdered opium, he found also, “that thirty-three of the samples were adulterated, and one only genuine; the principal adulterations, as in the previous case, being with poppy capsule and wheat flour. That four of the samples were further adulterated by the addition of powdered wood, introduced, no doubt, in the process of grinding.”
Dr. Thomson stated in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, that he had known extract of opium mixed with extract of senna, and from thirty to sixty per cent. of water.
Dr. O’Shaughnessy found from 25 to 21 per cent. of water in Indian opium (Behar agency), and 13 per cent. in Patna opium.
Dr. Eatwell, the opium examiner in the Benares district, finds that the proportion of water varies from 30 to 24-5 per cent. in the opium of that district.
In 1838, a specimen of opium resembling that of Smyrna was presented to the Société de Pharmacie of Paris, being part of a considerable quantity which had been introduced into commerce at Paris and Havre. It did not exhibit the least trace of morphia. It was in rolls, well covered with leaves, had a blackish section, and a slightly elastic consistence. It became milky upon contact with water. Its odour and taste were analogous to opium, but feebler. It was adulterated with so much skill, that agglutinated tears appeared even under a magnifier—a character which had hitherto been regarded as decisive in detecting pure opium, but which with this occurrence lost its value. The same article appears to have been met with also in the United States.