The white variety of the poppy is that which is exclusively brought under cultivation for the production of the drug in India and Egypt. For the successful culture of opium a mild climate, plentiful irrigation, a rich soil, and diligent husbandry are indispensable. One acre of well cultivated ground will yield from 70 lbs. to 100 lbs. of "chick," or inspissated juice, the price of which varies from 6s. to 12s. a pound, so that an acre will yield from £20 to £60 worth of opium at one crop. Three pounds of chick will produce one pound of opium, from a third to a fifth of the weight being lost in evaporation. A chief chemical feature, which distinguishes Bengal opium from that of Turkey and Egypt, is the large proportion which the narcotine in the former bears to the morphia, and this proportion is constant in all seasons. It is a matter of importance to ascertain whether the treatment which the juice receives after its collection can influence in any way the amount of alkaloids, or of the other principles in opium. In Turkey it is the custom to beat up the juice with saliva, in Malwa it is immersed as collected in linseed oil, whilst in Bengal it is brought to the required consistence by mere exposure to the air in the shade, though, at the same time, all the watery particles of the juice that will separate are drained off, and used in making Lewah, or inferior opium.
The lands selected for poppy cultivation are generally situated in the vicinity of villages, where the facilities for manuring and irrigation are greatest. In such situations and when the soil is rich, it is frequently the practice with the cultivators to take a crop of Indian corn, maize, or vegetables off the ground during the rainy season, and after the removal of this in September, to dress and manure the ground for the subsequent poppy sowings. In other situations, however, and when the soil is not rich, the poppy crop is the only one taken off the ground during the year, and from the commencement of the rains in June or July, until October, the ground is dressed and cleaned by successive ploughings and weedings, and manured to the extent which the means of the cultivator will permit. In the final preparation of the land in October and November, the soil, after being well loosened and turned up by the plough, is crushed and broken down by the passage of a heavy log of wood over its surface, and it is in this state ready for sowing.
The amount of produce from various lands differs considerably. Under very favorable circumstances of soil and season, as much as twelve or even thirteen seers (26 lbs.) of standard opium may be, obtained from each biggah of 27,225 square feet. "Under less favorable conditions the turn-out may not exceed three or four seers, but the usual amount of produce varies from six to eight seers per biggah.
The chemical examination of different soils in connection with their opium-producing powers, presents a field for profitable and interesting inquiry; nor is the least important part of the investigation that which has reference to variations in the proportions of the alkaloids (especially the morphia and narcotine), which occur in opium produced in various localities. That atmospheric causes exert a certain influence in determining these variations is probable; that they influence the amount of produce, and cause alterations in the physical appearance of the drug, are facts well known to every cultivator: thus the effect of dew is to facilitate the flow of the juice from the wounded capsule, rendering it abundant in quantity, but causing it at the same time to be dark and liquid. An easterly wind (which in India is usually concomitant with a damp state of atmosphere), retards the flow of juice, and renders it dark and liquid. A moderate westerly wind, with dew at night, form the atmospheric conditions most favorable for collection, both as regards the quantity and quality of the exudation. If, however, the westerly wind (which is an extremely dry wind) blow violently, the exudation from the capsules is sparing. Whilst the effect of meteorological phenomena in producing the above results are well marked, their action in altering the relative proportions of the chemical constituents of the juice of the poppy plant is more obscure, and it is highly probable that the chemical composition of the soil plays a most important part in this respect. Dr. O'Shaughnessy is certainly the most accomplished chemist who had ever, in India, turned his attention to the subject, and he has published the results of his analyses of specimens of opium from the different divisions of the Behar Agency, which are worthy of much attention. In the opium from eight divisions of the agency, he found the quantity of morphia to range from 1¾ grains to 3½ grains per cent., and the amount of the narcotine to vary from ¾ grain to 3½ grains per cent., the consistence of the various specimens being between 75 and 79 per cent. In the opium from the Hazareebaugh district (the consistence of the drug being 77), he found 4½ per cent, of morphia, and 4 per cent, narcotine; whilst from a specimen of Patna-garden opium he extracted no less than 10¾ per cent. of morphia, and 6 per cent. of narcotine, the consistence of the drug being 87. With respect to the last specimen, Dr. O'Shaughnessy mentions that the poppies which produced it were irrigated three times during the season, and that no manure was employed upon the soil. It is much to be regretted that these interesting results were not coupled with an analysis of the soils from which the specimens were produced, for to chemical variations in it must be attributed the widely different results recorded above.
Opium as a medicine has been used from the earliest ages; but when it was first resorted to as a luxury, it is impossible to state, though it is not at all improbable that this was coeval with its employment in medicine, for how often do we find that, from having been first administered as a sedative for pain, it has been continued until it has taken the place of the evil. Such must have happened from the earliest ages, as it happens daily in the present; but as a national vice it was not known until the spread of Islamism, when, by the tenets of the Prophet, wine and fermented liquors being prohibited, it came in their stead along with the bang or hasch-schash (made from hemp), coffee, and tobacco. From the Arabs the inhabitants of the Eastern Archipelago most probably imbibed their predilection for opium, although their particular manner of using it has evidently been derived from the Chinese. China, where at present it is so extensively used, cannot be said to have indulged long in the vice. Previous to 1767 the number of chests imported did not exceed 200 yearly; now the average is 50,000 to 60,000. In 1773 the East India Company made their first venture in opium, and in 1796 it was declared a crime to smoke opium.
In different countries we find opium consumed in different ways. In England it is either used in a solid state, made into pills, or a tincture in the shape of laudanum. Insidiously it is given to children under a variety of quack forms, such as "Godfrey's cordial," &c. In India the pure opium is either dissolved in water and so used, or rolled into pills. It is there a common practice to give it to children when very young, by mothers, who require to work and cannot at the same time nurse their offspring. In China it is either smoked or swallowed in the shape of Tye. In Bally it is first adulterated with China paper, and then rolled up with the fibres of a particular kind of plantain. It is then inserted into a hole made at the end of a small bamboo, and smoked. In Java and Sumatra it is often mixed with sugar and the ripe fruit of the plantain. In Turkey it is usually taken in pills, and those who do so, avoid drinking any water after swallowing them, as this is said to produce violent colics; but to make it more palatable, it is sometimes mixed with syrups or thickened juices; in this form, however, it is less intoxicating, and resembles mead. It is then taken with a spoon, or is dried in small cakes, with the words "Mash Allah," or "Word of God," imprinted on them. When the dose of two or three drachms a day no longer produces the beatific intoxication, so eagerly sought by the opiophagi, they mix the opium with corrosive sublimate, increasing the quantity of the latter till it reaches ten grains a day. It then acts as a stimulant. In addition to its being used in the shape of pills, it is frequently mixed with hellebore and hemp, and forms a mixture known by the name of majoon, whose properties are different from that of opium, and may account in a great measure for the want of similitude in the effect of the drug on the Turk and the Chinese.
In Singapore and China the refuse of the chandu, the prepared extract of opium, is all used by the lower classes. This extract, when consumed, leaves a refuse, consisting of charcoal, empyreumatic oil, some of the salts of opium, and a part of the chandu not consumed. Now one ounce of chandu gives nearly half an ounce of this refuse, called Tye, or Tinco. This is smoked and swallowed by the poorer classes, who only pay half the price of chandu for it. When smoked it yields a further refuse called samshing, and this is even used by the still poorer, although it contains a very small quantity of the narcotic principle. Samshing, however, is never smoked, as it cannot furnish any smoke, but is swallowed, and that not unfrequently mixed with arrack.
Preparation.—In Asia Minor, men, women, and children, a few days after the flower falls from the poppies, proceed to the fields, and with a shell scratch the capsules, wait twenty-four hours, and collect the tears, which amount to two or three grains in weight from each capsule. These being collected and mixed with the scrapings of the shells, worked up with saliva and surrounded by dried leaves, it is then sold, but, generally speaking, not without being still more adulterated with cow's dung, sand, gravel, the petals of flowers, &c. Different kinds of opium are known in the markets of Europe and Asia.
The first in point of quality is the Smyrna, known in commerce as the Turkey or Levant. It occurs in irregular, rounded, flattened masses, seldom exceeding two pounds in weight, and surrounded by leaves of a kind of sorrel; the quantity of morphia said to be derived from average specimens is eight per cent.
Second, Constantinople Opium, two kinds of which are found in the market, one in very voluminous irregular cakes, which are flattened like the Smyrna; this is a good quality. The other kind is in small, flattened, regular cakes, from two to two and a half inches in diameter, and covered with the leaves of the poppy; the quantity of morphia is very uncertain in this description of opium, sometimes mounting as high as 15 per cent., and sometimes descending so low as six, showing the great variety in the quality of the drug.