and subsequently tested the remedy himself on other patients with similar results. He sent some of the flowers to the German botanist Kunth, to whom they were new, and who named the tree Brayera anthelmintica. Still it does not appear that much notice was taken of the reports until about the year 1850, when a Frenchman offered the flowers in London for 35s. per ounce. The fancy price attracted attention to the remedy, which proved effectual.
Opium.
The ancients recognised two kinds of opium. The superior kind was called opion, and was the juice which exuded from the poppy head while it was growing; and the second quality, which was named meconion, was an extract made from the crushed heads and leaves of the poppy.
It is doubtful whether Hippocrates was acquainted with the juice of the poppy at all. He refers to mecon but he attributes to it a purgative as well as a narcotic power; it is therefore probable that he alludes to some other plant. In any case, he made but very little use of poppy or opium if he used either. Theophrastus certainly knew opium, and Dioscorides distinguishes opion and meconion as explained above. Dioscorides also gives the receipt for the famous Dia-kodion (made from the poppy head), the original of our syrup of poppies. His process was to macerate 120 poppy heads for two days in three sextarii (a sextarius was nearly equal to our Imperial pint) of rain-water. This was boiled, strained, mixed with honey, and boiled down to a suitable consistence.
Probably the shopkeepers and travelling quacks made
