FALSE PROPHETS.
“If your wish be rest,
Lettuce and cowslip wine _probatum est_.”
POPE.
Before describing any of the imitations of opium, or substitutes
for it in any form, it will not be out of place to notice briefly
the tinctures in popular use in which that drug forms a prominent
ingredient. _Laudanum_ is the spirituous infusion, and contains the
active ingredients of a twelfth part of its weight of opium. Scotch
_paregoric elixir_ is a solution in ammoniated spirit, and is only
one-fifth of the strength of laudanum, containing, therefore, one
part in sixty of opium. English _paregoric_ is a tincture of opium
and camphor, and is four times weaker still. The _black drop_, and
_Battley’s sedative liquor_, are believed to be solutions of opium in
vegetable acids, and to possess, the one of them, four, and the other,
three times the strength of laudanum. Although some good authorities
consider this an exaggerated computation of the strength of the latter
two, and that they are not more than half that strength. There are
several other pharmaceutical preparations into which opium enters as
a component, but to which it is unnecessary to refer. Those already
named, as has before been intimated, are used not a little, to still
the sounds of those miniature human organs so distasteful to bachelor
ears. The practice, unfortunately so prevalent, of soothing infants
with preparations of opium, cannot be too strongly deprecated. We are
ready to express our surprise that oriental mothers should transfer
their cigars from their own mouths to those of their infants, that the
helpless little creatures may enjoy the luxury of a suck, while, at the
same time, we are inuring them to the use of a far more insidious and
deadly poison. Rather let us for the future, when inclined to charge
this as a crime upon others, remember that scene which took place
eighteen hundred years ago, and the rebuke with which it closed, in
words written with the finger upon the ground, “Let him that is without
sin amongst you cast the first stone at her.”
One of the most important of opium substitutes is derived from a plant
in itself not only harmless, but extensively used as an article of
food: it is _Lactucarium_ or Lettuce Opium, and is prepared generally
from the wild lettuce, although similar properties exist to a more
limited extent in the cultivated varieties which find their way to our
tables.
There is no certainty about the period at which lettuce was introduced
into this country, although the time has been fixed at 1520, when it
is stated to have been brought from Flanders. In the early part of
the reign of Henry VIII., when Queen Katherine wished for a salad,
she despatched a messenger to Holland or Flanders; at that period,
therefore, very few English tables could ever boast the honour of a
salad. In the privy purse expenses of Henry VIII., in 1530, an item
occurs from which we learn that the gardener of York Place received a
reward for bringing “lettuze” and cherries to Hampton Court. This was
policy on the part of the King, his royal consort having a liking for
salads, for it was rather expensive as well as tedious, to send for
them to the gardens of Brabant.[22] In 1600, peas, beans, and lettuce
were in common use in England; and in 1652, a writer of the time speaks
of lettuce as a plant with which the public generally had been long
familiar. One variety of the cultivated lettuce was doubtless derived
from the island of Cos, inasmuch as it still bears that name.
Lettuces were known to the ancients. Dioscorides and Theophrastus
speak of them as cultivated by the Greeks, and also used in medicine;
the prickly lettuce is still found wild on the higher hills of
Greece, and was probably one of the species to which the above-named
ancient authors refer. Several varieties of the garden lettuce were
used in salads by both Greeks and Romans. The pride of the garden of
Aristoxenus was his lettuces, and he irrigated them with wine.
Two species of wild lettuce are found in Britain, the acrid and the
prickly lettuce, both of which possess similar properties, yielding a
juice from which lactucarium may be prepared. Two other wild species
are only occasional. The lactucarium of the London Pharmacopœia is
prepared only from the garden lettuce, but the acrid lettuce is stated
to yield a much larger quantity and of superior quality. A single
plant of the garden lettuce will yield only 17 grains of lactucarium,
on an average, while a plant of the acrid lettuce yields no less than
56 grains, or more than three times that quantity; and although the
milkiness of the juice increases till the very close of the time of
flowering, or till the month of October in this climate, the value
of the lactucarium is deteriorated after the middle of the period
of flowering, for subsequently, while the juice becomes thicker, a
material decrease takes place in the proportion of bitter extract
contained in it.
Lactucarium is a reddish brown substance with a narcotic odour and
bitter taste, having a considerable resemblance to opium. On analysis
it yields a snow white crystalline substance called _lactucin_,
which is narcotic in its effects. Dr. Duncan recommended the use of
lactucarium as a substitute for opium, the anodyne properties of which
it possesses, without being followed with the same injurious effects.
In France, a water is distilled from lettuce, and used as a mild
sedative. Experiments of the effects of lettuce-opium upon animals are
detailed by Orfila, who states that three drachms introduced into the
stomach of a dog killed it in two days, without causing any remarkable
symptoms; two drachms applied to a wound in the back induced giddiness,
slight sopor, and death in three days; and thirty-six grains injected,
in a state of solution, into the jugular vein caused dulness, weakness,
slight convulsions, and death in 18 minutes.
In North America the prickly lettuce is more common than with us, and
from it the American lactucarium is extracted. In Guinea a species of
lettuce is found wild, possessing precisely similar properties, and
applicable to a like use. This plant is largely used by the negroes as
a salad and also as an opiate.
The plants cultivated for the sake of the juice are grown in a
rich soil, with a southern aspect. In such a situation they thrive
vigorously, and send up thick, juicy, flower stems. As soon as these
have attained a considerable height, and before the flowers expand, a
portion of the top is cut off. The milky juice quickly exudes from the
wound, while the heat of the sun renders it so viscid that, instead of
flowing down, it concretes on the stem in a brownish flake. After it
has acquired a proper consistence it is removed. As the juice closes
up the vessels of the plant, another slice is taken off lower down the
stem, and the juice again flows freely and another flake is formed. The
same process is repeated as long as the plant affords any juice. To the
crude juice, thus obtained, the name of lactucarium has been given.
“This,” says Johnston, “is one of those narcotics in which many of us
unconsciously indulge. The eater of green lettuce as a salad, takes a
portion of it in the juice of the leaves he swallows; and many of my
readers, after this is pointed out to them, will discover that their
heads are not unaffected after indulging copiously in a lettuce salad.
Eaten at night, the lettuce causes sleep; eaten during the day, it
soothes and calms and allays the tendency to nervous irritability. And
yet the lover of lettuce would take it very much amiss if he were told
that he ate his green leaves, partly at least, for the same reason as
the Turk or the Chinaman takes his whiff from the tiny opium pipe:
that, in short, he was little better than an opium-eater, and his
purveyor than the opium smuggler on the coast of China.”
Lest this should occasion some alarm in the breasts of those who prefer
their lobsters with a salad, let us strive to administer a little
consolation. We have seen that the cultivated or garden lettuce does
not contain so much as one third the quantity of lactucarium yielded
by the wild species, ten good lettuces must therefore be eaten before
sufficient extract will have been consumed to have killed a dog in two
days. This is upon the presumption that the lettuces eaten as salad
are in precisely the same condition, and capable of affording the same
amount of the extract as when cultivated specially for that purpose;
but this is not the case, it is not until just before flowering that
the full amount of juice is contained in the plant, a per centage only
of which exists in the younger plants as gathered for the table. Nor
is that quantity of the same narcotic quality as in the more matured
plant, which has collected, at that period, all its strength properly
to produce, and bring to perfection, its flowers and fruit.
“Nothing hath got so far,
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey.
His eyes dismount the highest star,
He is in little all the sphere.
Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.
“More servants wait on man
Than he’ll take notice of: in every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh, mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.”
The lacticiferous or milk bearing plants are nearly all of them
connected by very important ties with man and civilization. The
phenomena themselves are well worthy of study, and their association
with humanity replete with interest. These plants are by no means
restricted to one genus or family, nor are their properties of the
same character. The one circumstance of their secreting a white juice
resembling milk in appearance is almost all they have in common. In the
poppy it becomes _opium_, in the lettuce _lactucarium_. It constitutes
refreshing beverages, obtained in large quantities, in the sunny
climes of Asia, from the cow-tree of South America, the kiriaghuma and
hya-hya of British Guiana, the _Euphorbia balsamifera_ of the Canary
Islands, the juice of which as a sweet milk, or evaporated to a jelly,
is taken as a great delicacy, and the Banyan tree, all of which, to a
certain extent, supply the place of the cow, in places and conditions
wherein cows are not to be found. Similar juices are collected in the
form of India rubber or caoutchouc, a substance so invaluable in the
arts of life. They exude from figs, euphorbiæ, and cacti, in the East
Indies, South America, and Africa, from all of which places a large
quantity of the consolidated juice is exported to the markets of Europe
and North America. The greater quantity of these lactescent juices
are elaborated in the Tropics. Gutta percha and allied substances
are similarly produced, and indeed, numerous plants are possessed of
this kind of secretion, which have not yet been made available for
economical purposes, but which may become equally well known, and
useful, to succeeding generations. Narcotic properties do not appear to
be so common in these juices as the irritant or acrid, which abound in
some euphorbiaceous plants, and the inert, and when coagulated and dry,
elastic properties found in the siphonias, figs, and sapotaceous plants.
In St. Domingo, a species of _Muracuja_ is believed to possess
qualities very similar to opium, from which, and from an allied plant,
Dr. Hamilton believes, that the concentrated sap, collected at a proper
time, strained, evaporated, and properly prepared, would prove an
excellent substitute for the expensive opium, at a cheaper rate. The
species indigenous to Jamaica, is known as bull-hoof or Dutchman’s
laudanum. At a time when opium was scarce, from some accidental cause,
in the island of Jamaica, a Dutch surgeon found in this plant a
successful substitute. The plant is common in Jamaica and some other
of the West Indian islands. It is an elegant climber, bearing bright
scarlet blossoms, somewhat resembling a passion flower. Browne says,
that the flowers are principally employed, and when infused, or mixed
in a state of powder with wine or spirits, are regarded as a safe and
effectual narcotic.
Dr. Landerer states that the Syrian rue is a highly esteemed plant in
Greece. This plant appears to have been known to the ancients, and
mentioned by Dioscorides. Its properties are narcotic, resembling
those of the Indian hemp. The Turks macerate the seeds in scherbet
or boosa, administering the infusion internally. It also serves in
the preparation of a yellow dye. The seeds are sometimes used by the
Turks as a spice, and the same people also resort to them to produce a
species of intoxication. The Emperor Solyman, it is stated kept himself
in a state of intoxication by their use. The peculiar phenomena of this
intoxication has not, that we are aware, been described, but we are
informed that the property of producing it exists in the husks of the
seeds, from which a chemical principle of a narcotic nature has been
obtained.
There is another plant, a native of Arabia, and of the nightshade
family, so prolific in narcotics, the seeds of which are used by some
of the Asiatics to produce those mental reveries and excitement so
much coveted. These seeds, the produce of a plant known to botanists
under the name of _Scopolia mutica_, are also roasted and infused to
form a sort of drink, in which the Arabs and some others indulge.
The seeds of a species of _Sterculia_ are said to be used by the
natives of Silhet as a substitute for opium. The Cola nuts, so highly
esteemed by the negroes of Guinea, are the produce of a Sterculia.
The natives attribute very extraordinary properties to these seeds,
somewhat analogous to those claimed by the Peruvians for the leaf of
the coca, stating, that if chewed, they satisfy hunger, and prevent the
natural craving for food, that for this purpose they carry some with
them when undertaking a long journey. They are also affirmed to improve
the flavour of anything that may be subsequently eaten, if a portion
of one of them is taken before meals. Formerly they were even more
esteemed than at the present day. In those times, fifty of them were
sufficient to purchase a wife. These seeds are flat, and of a brownish
colour and bitter taste. Their tonic properties have been supposed
equal to those of the famed Cedron seeds of Guiana and the more famous
Cinchona bark of the Andes. Probably further and more elaborate
investigation will prove that these wonderful seeds possess slightly
beneficial properties as a tonic, it may be even inferior to those of
the roots of Gentian, or other parts of some of our indigenous plants.
In the Straits, the leaves of the “Beah” tree are used by the
opium-smokers as a substitute for opium, when that drug is not
procurable. These serrated leaves, the produce of we know not precisely
what tree, except under the above native name, are occasionally sold in
the bazaars or markets at a quarter of a rupee per catty, or at the
rate, Anglicised, of fourpence halfpenny per pound.
In addition to the substances which do duty for opium knowingly and
wittingly, there are others which enter into its composition in the
form of adulteration, to which writers on materia medica have drawn
attention, and ultimately Dr. Hassell. These also deserve, with far
greater appropriateness, the designation of false prophets, since,
promising the glimpses of paradise which opium is believed to give,
they only
Keep the promise to the lip
And break it with the heart.
The first sophistication, says Pereira, which opium receives, is that
practised by the peasants who collect it, and who lightly scrape the
epidermis from the shells or capsules to augment the weight. This
operation adds about one-twelfth of foreign matters, which are removed
by the Chinese in their method of preparing the opium and forming it
into chandu.
[Illustration]
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.
A writer from Singapore states, “I lately saw a Chinaman brought
to the police for fabricating opium balls. The imitation balls were
composed of a skin or husk formed from the leaves of Madras tobacco,
inside was sand, which was evidently intended to form the shape of
the balls till the outer covering had sufficiently set, the whole was
neatly sewed with bandages of calico, which would be removed when the
tobacco was able to retain its proper shape, the sand would then be
abstracted, and a mixture of gambier and opium substituted, while the
outside would be rubbed over with a watery solution of chandu. By these
means the native traders are much and often imposed upon.”