OPIUM (Gr. ὄπιον, dim. from ὀπος, juice), a narcotic drug prepared from the juice of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, a plant probably indigenous in the south of Europe and western Asia, but now so widely cultivated that its original habitat is uncertain. The medicinal properties of the juice have been recognized from a very early period. It was known to Theophrastus
by the name of μηκώνιον, and appears in his time to
have consisted of an extract of the whole plant, since Dioscorides, about A.D. 77, draws a distinction between μηκώνειον, which he describes as an extract of the entire herb, and the more active ὀπος, derived from the capsules alone. From the 1st to the 12th
century the opium of Asia Minor appears to have been the only
kind known in commerce. In the 13th century opium thebaicum
is mentioned by Simon Januensis, physician to Pope Nicholas IV.,
while meconium was still in use. In the 16th century opium is
mentioned by Pyres (1516) as a production of the kingdom of
Cous (Kuch Behar, south-west of Bhutan) in Bengal, and of
Malwa.[1] Its introduction into India appears to have been
connected with the spread of Islam. The opium monopoly was
the property of the Great
Mogul and was regularly
sold. In the 17th century
Kāempfer describes the
various kinds of opium
prepared in Persia, and
states that the best sorts
were flavoured with spices
and called “theriaka.”
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Fig. 1.—Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum).
These preparations were
held in great estimation
during the middle ages,
and probably supplied to
a large extent the place
of the pure drug. Opium
is said to have been introduced
into China by the
Arabs probably in the
13th century, and it was
originally used there as a
medicine, the introduction
of opium-smoking
being assigned to the
17th century. In a
Chinese Herbal compiled before 1700 both the plant and
its inspissated juice are described, together with the mode
of collecting it, and in the General History of the Southern
Provinces of Yunnan, revised and republished in 1736, opium
is noticed as a common product. The first edict prohibiting
opium-smoking was issued by the emperor Yung Cheng in 1729.
Up to that date the amount imported did not exceed 200 chests,
and was usually brought from India by junks as a return cargo.
In the year 1757 the monopoly of opium cultivation in India
passed into the hands of the East India Company through the
victory of Clive at Plassey. Up to 1773 the trade with China
had been in the hands of the Portuguese, but in that year the
East India Company took the trade under their own charge,
and in 1776 the annual export reached 1000 chests, and 5054
chests in 1790. Although the importation was forbidden by
the Chinese imperial authorities in 1796, and opium-smoking
punished with severe penalties (ultimately increased to transportation
and death), the trade continued and had increased
during 1820–1830 to 16,877 chests per annum. The trade was
contraband, and the opium, was bought by the Chinese from
depôt ships at the ports. Up to 1839 no effort was made to stop
the trade, but in that year the emperor Tao-Kwang sent a commissioner,
Lin Tsze-sü, to Canton to put down the traffic. Lin
issued a proclamation threatening hostile measures if the British
opium ships serving as depôts were not sent away. The demand
for removal not being complied with, 20,201 chests of opium
(of 14913 ℔ each), valued at £2,000,000, were destroyed by the
Chinese commissioner Lin; but still the British sought to
smuggle cargoes on shore, and some outrages committed on both
sides led to an open war, which was ended by the treaty of
Nanking in 1842. The importation of opium continued and was
legalized in 1858. From that time, in spite of the remonstrances
of the Chinese government, the exportation of opium from India
to China continued, increasing from 52,925 piculs (of 13313 ℔);
in 1850 to 96,839 piculs in 1880. While, however, the court
of Peking was honestly endeavouring to suppress the foreign
trade in opium from 1839 to 1858 several of the provincial viceroys
encouraged the trade, nor could the central government put a
stop to the home cultivation of the drug. The cultivation
increased so rapidly that at the beginning of the 20th century
opium was produced in every province of China. The western
provinces of Sze-ch‘uen, Yun-nan and Kwei-chow yielded respectively
200,000, 30,000 and 15,000 piculs (of 13313 ℔);
Manchuria 15,000; Shen-si, Chih-li and Shan-tung 10,000 each;
and the other provinces from 5000 to 500 piculs each, the whole
amount produced in China in 1906 being estimated at 330,000
piculs, of which the province of Sze-ch‘uen produced nearly two thirds.
Of this amount China required for home consumption
325,270 piculs, the remainder being chiefly exported to Indo-China,
whilst 54,225 piculs of foreign opium were imported into
China. Of the whole amount of opium used in China, equal to
22,588 tons, only about one-seventh came from India.
The Chinese government regarding the use of opium as one of the most acute moral and economic questions which as a nation they have to face, representing an annual loss to the country of 856,250,000 taels, decided in 1906 to put an end to the use of the drug within ten years, and issued an edict on the 20th of September 1906, forbidding the consumption of opium and the cultivation of the poppy. As an indication of their earnestness of purpose the government allowed officials a period of six months in which to break off the use of opium, under heavy penalties if they failed to do so. In October of the same year the American government in the Philippines, having to deal with the opium trade, raised the question of the taking of joint measures for its suppression by the powers interested, and as a result a conference met at Shanghai on the 1st of February 1909 to which China, the United States of America, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal and Russia sent delegates. At this meeting it was resolved that it was the duty of the respective governments to prevent the export of opium to any countries prohibiting its importation; that drastic measures should be taken against the use of morphine; that anti-opium remedies should be investigated; and that all countries having concessions in China should close the opium divans in their possessions. The British government made an offer in 1907 to reduce the export of Indian opium to countries beyond the seas by 5100 chests, i.e. 110th of the amount annually taken by China, each year until the year 1910, and that if during these three years the Chinese government had carried out its arrangements for proportionally diminishing the production and consumption of opium in China, the British government were prepared to continue the same rate of reduction, so that the export of Indian opium to China would cease in ten years; the restrictions of the imports of Turkish, Persian and other opiums being separately arranged for by the Chinese government, and carried out simultaneously. The above proposal was gratefully received by the Chinese government. A non-official report by Mr E. S. Little, after travelling through western China, which appeared in the newspapers in May 1910, stated that all over the province of Sze-ch‘uen opium had almost ceased to be produced, except only in a few remote districts on the frontier (see further China: § History).
The average annual import of Persian and Turkish opium into China is estimated at 1125 piculs, and if this quantity were to be reduced every year by one-ninth, beginning in 1909, in nine years the import into China would entirely cease, and the Indian, Persian and Turkish opiums no longer be articles of commerce in that country. One result of these regulations was that the price of foreign opium in China rose, a circumstance which was calculated to reduce the loss to the Indian revenue.
- ↑ Aromatum Historia (ed. Clusius, Ant., 1574).
