English opium. : The large silver medal was this Session given to J. W. Jeston, Esq. Surgeon, of Henley on Thames, for his improvements in the method of collecting English opium. ...

  • Jeston, J.W. (Surgeon)
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English opium. : The large silver medal was this Session given to J. W. Jeston, Esq. Surgeon, of Henley on Thames, for his improvements in the method of collecting English opium. ... Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    English and Turkey opium. In the box will be found two cakes of opium, collected this last season ; the scarification- scoops and bottles used in collecting; also some specimens of morphine, of narcotine, and of a very tenacious adhesive matter, &c. extracted from English opium. Allow me to add that I have tried, and now use, the English opium medicinally in my profession, and find it rather stronger and more certain in its operation than the best Turkey opium. I remain, Sir, To A. Atkin, jEsq. &c. &c. &c. Secretary, c^c. fyc. J. W. Jeston, Surgeon, Henley, and II. P. 36th Reg. of Foot. In April, 1816, I prepared a quarter of an acre of land in Warwickshire, by having it divided into beds, four feet and a half wide, with a foot and a half for path-ways ; these I had planted with several varieties of the papaver somniferum; the seed was mixed with ashes, in the proportion of four ounces of seed to the bushel ; each bed contained seven rows of plants, nine inches asunder. The plants blossomed the end of July, and the capsules were not fit for scarifying till the middle of August. The season being extremely wet, and having been disappointed in some former experiments in gathering the opium in the usual way by allowing the juice to be inspissated on the capsules, I now tried a new method of collecting the milky tears, for which purpose I employed for my scarificator an inch and six-eighths of an old watch- spring, sharpened at both extremities, and on the four sides : this I thrust through a slice of a large wine cork, to the depth that I wished to have the heads scarified, and on one end becoming blunted, the other extremity, on being set to a proper depth, might be used ; by this means I had the