The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 85

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 "G.o.dfrey'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 G.o.d," 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 quant.i.ty 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 h.e.l.lebore 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 cla.s.ses. 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 cla.s.ses, 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 quant.i.ty 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sc.r.a.pings of the sh.e.l.ls, 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 ma.s.ses, seldom exceeding two pounds in weight, and surrounded by leaves of a kind of sorrel; the quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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.

Third, _Egyptian Opium_, occurs in round flattened cakes, about 3 inches in diameter, and covered externally with the vestiges of some leaf. It is distinguished from the others by its reddish color, resembling "Socotrine Aloes." The quant.i.ty of morphia in this is inferior to the preceding. It has one quality which, when adulterated, ought to be known, that is a musty smell. By keeping it does not blacken like the other kinds.

Fourth, _English Opium_, is in flat cakes or b.a.l.l.s enveloped in leaves. It resembles fine Egyptian opium more than any other kind.

Its color is that of hepatic aloes, and in the quant.i.ty of morphia it is inferior to the preceding, but in the strength of the ma.s.s it is said by one of its most extensive cultivators to be superior.

Fifth, _French_, and sixth _German Opium_, require no particular remarks. By a recent notice I find the French are cultivating the poppy in Algeria, from which they get opium giving a small per centage of morphia.

Seventh, _Trebizond_ or _Persian Opium_, is sometimes met with of a very inferior quality in the form of cylindrical sticks, which by pressure have become angular.

Eighth, _Indian Opium_, divided into four kinds, Cutch, Malwa, Patna and Benares. Of these Cutch is but little known or cultivated. It occurs in small cakes covered with leaves, and its color is much inferior to Smyrna. Malwa opium is to be met with of two kinds. The inferior is in flattened cakes, without any external covering, dull, opaque, blackish brown externally, internally somewhat darker, and soft. Its color is somewhat like the Smyrna, but less powerful, and with a slight smoky smell. Superior Malwa is in square cakes, about three inches in length and one inch thick. It has the appearance of a well prepared, shining, dry, pharmaceutical extract; its color is blackish brown, its odor less powerful than Smyrna; it is not covered by petals as the following kinds are, but smeared with oil; it is then rubbed with pounded petals.

The Behar, Patna, and Benares Opium, being strictly in the hands of Government, no adulteration can take place, without a most extensive system of fraud; but it will not be uninteresting to trace the progress of the opium from the hands of the natives, to the condition in which it is delivered to the public by the Government.

From the commencement of the hot season to the middle of the rains the Government is ready to receive opium, which is brought by the natives every morning, in batches, varying in quant.i.ties from twenty seers to a maund. The examining officer into each jar thrusts his examining rod, which consists of a slit bamboo, and, by experience, he can so judge of the qualities of the specimens before him, which are sorted into lots of No. 1 to No. 4 quality. Opium of the first quality is of a fine chesnut color, aromatic smell, and dense consistence. It is moderately ductile, and, when the ma.s.s is torn, breaks with a deeply notched fracture, with sharp needle-like fibres, translucent and ruby red at the edges. It is readily broken down under water, and the solution at first filters of a sherry color, which darkens as the process proceeds. One hundred grains of this yield an extract to cold distilled water of from 35 to 45, and at the temperature of 212 degs., leaves from 20 to 28 per cent., having a consistency of 70 to 72, the consistence of the factory.

The second quality is inferior to the first, and the third quality is possessed of the following properties, black paste, of a very heavy smell, drops from the examining rod, gives off from 40 to 50 per cent, of moisture, and contains a large quant.i.ty of "Pasewa;"

while the fourth or last number embraces all the kinds which are too bad to be used in the composition of the b.a.l.l.s, comprising specimens of all varieties of color and consistence. This number is mixed with water, and only used as a paste to cement the covering of the b.a.l.l.s.

The three first qualities are emptied from their jars into large tanks, in which they are kept until the supply of the season has been obtained. The opium is then removed and exposed to the air on shallow wooden frames, until it becomes of the consistency of from 69 to 70, when it is given to the cake maker, who guesses to a drachm the exact weight, and envelops the opium in its covering of petals, cemented by a covering of quality number 4. The b.a.l.l.s are then weighed and stored, to undergo a thorough ventilation and drying. Formerly the covering of the b.a.l.l.s was composed of the leaves of tobacco; but the late Mr. Flemming introduced the practice of using the petals of the poppy, which was such an improvement that the Court of Directors presented him with 50,000 rupees. The b.a.l.l.s, forty in number, are packed in a mango wood case, which consists of two stories with twenty pigeon holes in each, lined with lath and surrounded by the dried leaves of the poppy.

Sometimes these b.a.l.l.s are so soft as to burst their skins, and much of the liquid opium running out, is lost. In 1823, many of the chests of Patna lost five catties from this cause, and to this day we have the same thing continuing to occur. Patna chests are covered with bullock hides, Benares with gunnies.

Dr. Impey, staff surgeon at Poona, who resided in Malwa from 1843 to 1846, published at Bombay, in 1848, a valuable treatise on the cultivation, preparation, and adulteration of Malwa opium. It was some time before he obtained the permission of the East India Company to publish the result of the experience he had acquired in Malwa, and as Government inspector of opium at Bombay. It is the most practical treatise I have yet met with, although a very elaborate, useful paper, by Mr. Little, surgeon, of Singapore, appears in the 2nd vol. of the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," from which I have quoted the preceding remarks.

Mr. Little furnishes a complete history of the drug, and the physical and mental effects resulting from its habitual use. There are also some able remarks in Dr. O'Shaughnessy's Bengal Dispensatory:--

For the successful cultivation of opium, a mild climate, plentiful irrigation, a rich soil, and diligent husbandry, are indispensable.

In reference to the first of these, Malwa is placed most favorably.

The country is in general from 1,300 to 2,000 feet above the level of the sea: the mean temperature is moderate, and range of the thermometer small. Opium is always cultivated in ground near a tank or running stream, so as to be insured at all times of an abundant supply of water. The rich black loam, supposed to be produced by the decomposition of trap, and known by the name of cotton soil, is that prepared for opium. Though fertile and rich enough to produce thirty successive crops of wheat without fallowing, it is not sufficiently rich for the growth of the poppy until largely supplied with manure.

There is, in fact, no crop known to the agriculturist, unless sugar cane, that requires so much care and labor as the poppy. The ground is first four times ploughed on four successive days, then carefully harrowed; when manure, at the rate of from eight to ten cart loads an acre, is applied to it; this is scarcely half what is allowed a turnip crop at home. The crop is after this watered once every eight or ten days, the total number of waterings never exceeding nine in all. One beegah takes two days to soak thoroughly in the cold weather, and four as the hot season approaches. Water applied after the petals drop from the flower, causes the whole to wither and decay. When the plants are six inches high, they are weeded and thinned, leaving about a foot and a-half betwixt each plant; in three months they reach maturity, and are then about four feet in height if well cultivated. The full-grown seed-pod measures three and a-half inches vertically, and two and a-half in horizontal diameter. Early in February and March the bleeding process commences. Three small lancet-shaped pieces of iron are bound together with cotton, about one-twelfth of an inch of the blade alone protruding, so that no discretion as to the depth of the wound to be inflicted shall be left to the operator; and this is drawn sharply up from the top of the stalk at the base, to the summit of the pod. The sets of people are so arranged that each plant is bled all over once every three or four days, the bleedings being three or four times repeated on each plant. This operation always begins to be performed about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day. The juice appears almost immediately on the wound being inflicted, in the shape of a thick gummy milk, which is thickly covered with a brownish pellicle. The exudation is greatest over night, when the incisions are washed and kept open by the dew.

The opium thus derived is sc.r.a.ped off next morning, with a blunt iron tool resembling a cleaver in miniature. Here the work of adulteration begins--the sc.r.a.per being pa.s.sed heavily over the seed-pod, so as to carry with it a considerable portion of the beard, or p.u.b.escence, which contaminates the drug and increases its apparent quant.i.ty. The work of sc.r.a.ping begins at dawn, and must be continued till ten o'clock; during this time a workman will collect seven or eight ounces of what is called "chick." The drug is next thrown into an earthen vessel, and covered over or drowned in linseed oil, at the rate of two parts of oil to one of chick, so as to prevent evaporation. This is the second process of adulteration--the ryot desiring to sell the drug as much drenched with oil as possible, the retailers at the same time refusing to purchase that which is thinner than half dried glue. One acre of well cultivated ground will yield from 70 to 100 pounds of chick.

The price of chick varies from three to six rupees a pound, so that an acre will yield from 200 to 600 rupees worth of opium at one crop. Three pounds of chick will produce about two pounds of opium, from a third to a fifth of the weight being lost in evaporation. It now pa.s.ses into the hands of the Bunniah, who prepares it and brings it to market. From twenty-five to fifty pounds having been collected, is tied up in parcels in double bags of sheeting cloth, which are suspended from the ceilings so as to avoid air and light, while the spare linseed oil is allowed to drop through. This operation is completed in a week or ten days, but the bags are allowed to remain for a month or six weeks, during which period the last of the oil that can be separated comes away; the rest probably absorbs oxygen and becomes thicker, as in paint. This process occupies from April to June or July, when the rain begins. The bags are next taken down and their contents carefully emptied into large vats from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and six or eight inches thick. Here it is mixed together and worked up with the hands five or six hours, until it has acquired an uniform color and consistence throughout, become tough and capable of being formed into ma.s.ses.

This process is peculiar to Malwa. It is now made up into b.a.l.l.s of from eight to ten ounces each, these being thrown, as formed, into a basket full of the chaff of the seeds pod. It is next spread out on ground previously covered with leaves and stalks of the poppy; here it remains for a week or so, when it is turned over and left further to consolidate, until hard enough to bear packing. It is ready for weighing in October or November, and is then sent to market. It is next packed in chests of 150 cakes, the total cost of the drug at the place of production being about fourteen rupees per chest, including all expenses. About 20,000 chests are annually sent from Malwa, at a prime cost charge of two lacs and 80,000 rupees. It may easily be supposed that manipulations so numerous, complex, and tedious, as those described, give the most ample opportunities for the adulteration to which the nature of the drug tempts the fraudulent dealer.

In order to enable the cultivator to carry on his agricultural operations, he receives from time to time certain advances, the amount of which reaches in the aggregate to about one-half of the value of the estimated out-turn of produce. If the land has been under cultivation in previous seasons, its average produce is known; if it be new land, and considered by the Sub-Deputy Agent as eligible, then the cultivator, in addition to the usual advances, receives an advance of so much per biggah to enable him to bestow a certain amount of extra care in tilling and dressing the soil. The first advance is made on the completion of the agreement or bundobust, and this takes place in September and October. The second advance is made on the completion of the sowings in November, and the final or Chook payment is made immediately after the delivery and weighing of the produce. Nothing therefore can be fairer to the cultivator than this system of advances; he is subject to no sort of exaction, in the shape of interest or commission on the money which he receives, and it puts within his power the certain means of making a fair profit by the exercise of common care and honesty. It is an established rule in the Agency that the cultivator's accounts of one season shall be definitively settled before the commencement of the next, and that no outstanding balances shall remain over.

When a cultivator has from fraud neglected to bring produce to cover his advances, the balances due by him are at once recovered, if necessary by legal means; whereas, if he can satisfactorily show that he has become a defaulter from calamity and uncontrollable circ.u.mstances, and that the liquidation of his debt is placed entirely beyond his power, his case is then made the subject of report to the Government by the Agent, with the request that the debt may be written off to profit and loss. These provisions are most wise, for outstanding balances may be made the means of oppression, and to their operation may be traced a considerable amount of litigation and agrarian crime in the indigo districts of lower Bengal. It is clear that when such balances become so large that the cultivator cannot discharge them, he is no longer a free agent, but is perfectly subservient to the will of his creditor, for whom he must cultivate whether he desire it or not. Such burdens may even be handed down from father to son. The fairness of the Agency system, and the justice with which the cultivators are treated, are best evidenced by the readiness with which they come forward to cultivate, and also by the comparative rarity of agrarian crime, arising out of matters connected with the poppy cultivation.

Opium is grown to some extent in Egypt; 39,875 lbs. were produced in 1831, and sold at two dollars a pound.

At the end of October, after the withdrawal of the Nile waters the seed, mixed with a portion of pulverised earth, is sown in a strong soil, in furrows; after fifteen days the plant springs up, and in two months has the thickness of a Turkish pipe, and a height of four feet; the stalk is covered with long, oval leaves, and the fruit, which is greenish, resembles a small orange. Every morning before sunrise, in its progress to maturity, small incisions are made in the sides of the fruit, from which a white liquor distils almost immediately, which is collected in a vessel; it soon becomes black and thickish, and is rolled into b.a.l.l.s, which are covered with the washed leaves of the plant; in this state it is sold. The seeds are crushed for lamp oil, and the plant is used for fuel.

A plant known in Jamaica under the name of bull hoof yields a narcotic which has been administered successfully in the shape of tincture and a syrup, instead of opium. This is the _Muracuja ocellata_, or _Pa.s.siflora muracuja_, of Swartz, an elegant climber, bearing bright scarlet blossoms. There is another species, _M. orbiculata_, found in Hayti and other islands, which may be expected to partake more or less of the properties of the former. The flowers are the parts most commonly employed.

THE TOBACCO PLANT.

Several species of _Nicotium_ furnish tobacco; that chiefly used in Europe is procured from _N. Tabac.u.m_ and its numerous varieties, a plant naturally inhabiting the hotter parts of North and South America. The popular narcotic furnished by tobacco is probably in more extensive use than any other, and its only rivals are opium and the betel-nut and leaf of the East. The herb for smoking was brought to England from Tobago, in the West Indies, or from Tobasco, in Mexico (whence the name), by Sir Ralph Lane, in 1586. Seeds were shortly after introduced from the same quarter.

"Tobacco, as used by man," says Du Tour, "gives pleasure to the savage and the philosopher, to the inhabitant of the burning desert and the frozen zone; in short, its use, either in powder, to chew, or to smoke, is universal; and for no other reason than a sort of convulsive motion (sneezing) produced by the first, and a degree of intoxication by the two last modes of use."

Tobacco is an annual plant, attaining a height of six feet, having dingy red, funnel-shaped flowers, and viscid leaves. The leaves are the officinal part, and their active properties depend on a peculiar, oily-like alkaloid, called Nicotin. The flavor and strength of tobacco depend on climate, cultivation, and the mode of manufacture. That most esteemed by the smoker is Havanna tobacco, but the Virginian is the strongest. The small Havanna cigars are prepared from the leaves of _Nicotium repanda_, Syrian and Turkish tobacco from _N. rustica_, and fine Shiraz tobacco from _N. persica_. With the exception of the Macuba tobacco, which is cultivated in Martinique in a peculiar soil, the tobacco of Cuba is considered the finest in the world. That grown in the island of Trinidad is, however, fully equal to it in quality, but all raised in the colony is generally consumed there, and is little known in the English market. This ought not to be the case, for no article would pay better.

The Maryland is a very light tobacco, in thin, yellow leaves; that of Virginia is in large brown leaves, unctuous or somewhat gluey on the surface, having a smell very like the figs of Malaga; that of Havanna is in brownish light leaves, of an agreeable and rather spicy smell,--it forms, as I have already stated, the best cigars. The Carolina tobacco is less unctuous than the Virginian, but in the United States it ranks next to the Maryland. The s.h.a.g tobacco is dried to the proper point upon sheets of copper, and is cut up by knife-edged chopping stamps. There are said to be four kinds of tobacco reared in Virginia, viz., the sweet-scented, which is considered the best; the _big and little_, which follows next; then the Frederick; and, lastly, the _one and all_, the largest kind, and producing most in point of quant.i.ty.

According to Loudon ("Encyclo. of Plants"), there are fourteen species of this genus, besides a few varieties. Lindley, however, enumerates 31, but many of these are mere showy species, adapted to flower gardens. I shall therefore follow chiefly London's cla.s.sification--

1. _N. Tabac.u.m_, a native of several parts of America, but princ.i.p.ally known as Virginian tobacco, having a stem rising from four to six feet or more in height, bearing pink flowers. Of this there are three chief varieties known in America by the popular names of Orinoco, Broad-leaved and Narrow-leaved. Lindley enumerates eight varieties of _N. Tabac.u.m_.

2. _N. macrophylla_, or large-leaved tobacco, an ornamental annual, also with pink flowers, native of America, which rises to the height of six feet.

3. _N. fruticosa_, or shrubby tobacco, an ornamental evergreen shrub, native of China, with pink blossoms, which grows to about three feet.

4. _N. undulata_, or _suaveolens_, sweet-scented or New Holland tobacco, a green house perennial, native of New South Wales, with white flowers, which is only two feet high.

5. _N. rustica_.--The common green or English tobacco, an annual plant, native of America, producing white flowers, which seldom grows higher than three feet.

6. _N. paniculata_, or panicled tobacco, an annual plant bearing greenish yellow flowers, native of Peru, rises to the height of three feet.

7. _N. glutinosa_, or clammy-leaved tobacco, also an annual plant, native of Peru, growing to the height of four feet, with bright scarlet flowers.

8. _N. plumbaginifolia_, or curled-leaved tobacco, an ornamental deciduous annual, native of America, with white blossoms, rising to the height of two feet.

9. _N. pusilla_, or primrose-leaved tobacco, an ornamental deciduous biennial, with white flowers, native of Vera Cruz, rising to three feet.

10. _N. quadrivalvis_, four-valved, or Missouri tobacco, an ornamental annual, native of North America, with white flowers, seldom growing higher than two feet.

11. _N. nana_, or rocky mount tobacco, a curious greenhouse annual, native of North America, with white blossoms, rising only three inches high.

12. _N. Langsdorffii_, or Langsdorff's tobacco, an ornamental annual, with greenish yellow flowers, native of Chili, reaching five feet high.

13. _N. cerinthoides_, or honey-wort tobacco, an ornamental annual, with greenish yellow flowers, native country unknown.

14. _N. repanda_, or Havanna tobacco, an annual with white flowers, native of Cuba, rising two feet high.

There are a few species, natives of the Province of Buenos Ayres, which may be particularised. _N. bonariensis_, having white flowers; _N. glauca_, yellowish green flowers; _N. longiflora_, white flowers; and _N. viscosa_, pink flowers.

The important mineral substances presented in Havanna tobacco, examined by Hertung, are in 100 parts of ashes,

Salts of potash 34.15 Salts of lime 51.38 Magnesia 4.09 Phosphates 9.04