has been so commonly used, as to be incorporated in all the materia medicas of subsequent medical writers. According to Dr. Royle, the Hemp may have been the substance referred to by Ilomer, as its use is very ancient, though its effects are very different from those of Opium, the one being sedative, the other exciting. Hence the Hemp, known here as "bang," has been and is still used, when activity and excitement are required. The Hemp was used in Richard 1st. of England's time, as he nearly met with his death from a follower of the old man of the mountain,[1] who was a Hashshashan or person who indulges in the habit of using "Hashshach," a preparation of Hemp and other narcotics and still known in Egypt by that name.
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 24 hours, and collect the tears, which amount to two or three grains in weight from each capsule. These being collected are 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 the 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 fifteen per cent, and sometimes descending as low as six, shewing the great variety in the quality of the drug.
- ↑ Our word "Assassin" is supposed by the learned to be derived from the word "Hashshashan."
