nce on the cancer elements,
retarding and checking the cell growth, which is a main feature of
the disease. Even when no surgical operation has been performed,
Opium is the only drug which markedly checks cancer growth: and
the early employment of this medicine will usually add years of
comfortable life to the otherwise shortened space of the sufferer's
existence." Opium gets its name from the Greek _apos_, juice.

The seeds of the white Poppy are known us mawseed, or balewort,
and are given as food to singing birds. In old Egypt these seeds were
mixed with flour and honey, and made into cakes.

Pliny says: "The rustical peasants of Greece glazed the upper crust
of their loaves with yolks of eggs, and then bestrewed them with
Poppy seeds," thus showing that the seeds were then considered free
from narcotic properties. And in Queen Elizabeth's time these seeds
were strewn over confectionery, whilst the oil expressed from them
was "delightful to be eaten when taken with bread."

White Poppy capsules, when dried, furnish papaverine and
narcotine, with some mucilage, and a little waxy matter. The seeds
contained within the capsules yield Poppy seed oil, with a fixed oil,
and a very small quantity of morphia--about five grains in a pound
of white Poppy seeds. In some parts of Russia the seeds are put into
soups.

The Poppy was cultivated by the Greeks before the time of
Hippocrates. It has long been a symbol of death, because sending
persons to sleep. Ovid says, concerning the Cave of Somnus:--

"Around whose entry nodding Poppies grow,
And all cool Simples that sweet rest bestow."

[441] The common scarlet Poppy was called by the Anglo-Saxons
"Chesebolle," "Chebole," or "Chybolle," from the ripe capsule
resembling a round cheese.

There is a Welsh Poppy, with yellow flowers; and a horned Poppy,
named after Glaucus, common on our sea coasts, with sea-green
leaves, and large blossoms of golden yellow. Glaucus, a fisherman
of Boeotia, observed that all the fishes which he caught received
fresh vigour when laid on the ground, and were immediately able to
leap back into the sea. He attributed these effects to some herb
growing in the grass, and upon tasting the leaves of the Sea Poppy
he found himself suddenly moved with an intense desire to live in
the sea; wherefore he was made a sea-god by Oceanus and Tethys.
Borlase says: "That in the Scilly Islands the root of the Sea Poppy is
so much valued for removing a