The red or corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) and the garden or opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), both native to Eurasia, have been grown in the Near East since ancient times.
The botanical name of the opium poppy is derived from Somnus...
* Please Note: This information is based partly on Traditional Medicine which uses natural materials to support health. This information has not been evaluated or approved by the FDA. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products are intended to support general well being and are not intended to treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any condition or disease. If conditions persist, please seek advice from your medical doctor.
Description
The red or corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) and the garden or opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), both native to Eurasia, have been grown in the Near East since ancient times.
The botanical name of the opium poppy is derived from Somnus, the Roman god of sleep, because the garden poppy is the source of one of the most powerful sleep-inducing narcotic drugs, opium, whose name is derived from the Greek opion - poppy juice. Morphine, an opium derivative, is named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Heroin, which is the German trade-name for a morphine derivative, was introduced to the medical world in 1898.
The root of the poppy was used in ancient Assyria and Babylonia as an aphrodisiac. The juice of poppy seeds was well known to the ancient Egyptians as a sleep and dream inducing narcotic. The ancient Greeks used poppy seeds to relieve pain and procure sleep. The Greeks, who regarded sleep as the greatest of all physicians and the most powerful consoler of humanity, crowned all their nocturnal gods with a wreath of poppy blossoms.
In Greek mythology the poppy was dedicated to Nix, goddess of night; to Thanatos, god of death; to his twin-brother Hypnos, god of sleep; and to the son of Hypnos, Morpheus, god of dreams. On this account, ever since antiquity, the poppy has been the symbol of consolation and oblivion. The opiate properties of poppy juice were mentioned by the Greek poet, Homer, as early as 850 B.C., and the use of poppy juice for medical purposes in the form of opium wine has been noted in the writings of the father of medicine, Hippocrates, the Greek physician (460-377 B.C.).
The cultivation of the opium poppy spread with the march of Islam into Persia, Malaya and India. For centuries, poppies have been cultivated and opium manufactured in Bengal, the world's principal production center of the narcotic. The common notion that opium is typically Chinese is altogether false. Poppies were grown in Chinese gardens, but only as ornamental flowers, and not to provide a source of opium. The truth is that in the past century the East India Company, wishing to dispose of large quantities of opium manufactured in Bengal, sought to do so in China. This was opposed by the Chinese government, since the use of opium was forbidden in the Kingdom of the Middle.
In the so-called Opium War that ensued (1839-1842), the drug was forced on China in unlimited quantities by the East India Company, aided by British and Oriental bootleggers who ran opium ships into Canton. Thus, the outlawed Foreign Black Mud was distributed in true gangster fashion all over the Chinese mainland, eventually destroying the power of the Chinese population to resist the commercial demands of the Western Powers.
Opium was not manufactured in China proper before 1853. During 1931-1937, the Japanese, taking a leaf from history, ran another opium derivative, heroin, into China through Korea. They aimed at breaking the Chinese will to resist their domination.
Today the three medically important and benevolent substances derived from the poppy - opium, morphine and heroin - have at the same time become the curse of humanity. They are smoked, eaten, drunk, sniffed or injected by untold millions of unfortunate addicts of all creeds and nationalities throughout the world. The distribution practices of present, day narcotic rings are nothing new. They are only the modern continuation of the unsavory commercial practices of the China traders of 120 years ago.
In antiquity the seeds of the corn poppy, which grew wild in the grain fields of the Near East, naturally got mixed in among the cereal seeds. Thus when these cereal seeds from the east were brought to western Europe and the British Isles, the poppy came along with them and spread through every land from east to west.
One of the enjoyable products of the poppy is the poppy-seed which, for generations, has been used as a condiment in bread, pastry and other baked goods. The condiment is from either the black or white poppy, both of which are seed-heavy varieties of the opium poppy. Their seeds are so tiny that one pod may contain as many as thirty thousand of them. An old English custom to induce sleep in small children was to mix crushed poppy-seeds with their pap, made from bread boiled and softened in milk.
The red corn poppy, considered the emblem of eternal sleep and oblivion, was believed to spring up on every battle-ground where men fought and died, deriving its red color from the blood of slain warriors. For centuries, the red poppy has been a symbol of fallen heroes in every war and, after World War I, the poppies of Flanders were adopted as the emblem of the U.S. Armistice Day, in memory of the dead of America's armed forces:
"In Flanders' fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard among the guns below."
John McCrae "Punch", December 8, 1915
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Directions
Stir 1/4 of a teaspoon into a glass of water and consume 3 times daily, with meals.
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