The use and cultivation of the poppy dates from very remote times. The plant was well known in the time of the eminent Greek poet Homer, who speaks of the poppy juice as a dispeller of sorrows (Odyssey, IV. l. 220). According to Plinius the word poppy (_Papaver_) is derived from _papa_, meaning pap, the standard food of infants, because poppy juice was added to it for the purpose of inducing sleep. The ending _ver_ is from _verum_, meaning true; that is, this food was the true sleep-producing substance. Opium, the inspissated juice of the poppy pods, was apparently not known in the time of Hippocrates, only the freshly expressed juice being used. It is through Diocles Karystius (350 B. C.) that we obtain the first detailed information regarding the use of opium. Nicandros (150 B. C.) refers to the dangerous effects produced by this drug. Scribonius Largus, Dioscorides, Celsus, and Plinius gave us the first reports regarding the origin, production, and adulteration of opium. Plinius mentions the method of incising the capsules. The Arabians are said to have introduced opium into India. It appeared in Europe during the middle ages, but was apparently in little demand. It was much more favorably received in the Orient. In 1500 it constituted one of the most important export articles of Calcutta. India supplied China with large quantities of opium, at first only for medicinal purposes. It is said that the Chinese acquired the habit of smoking opium about the middle of the seventeenth century, and since then it has ever been the favorite manner of consuming it. The poppy is cultivated in temperate and tropical countries. The opium yield of plants grown in temperate climates is, however, much less than that of the subtropical and tropical countries, though the quality is about the same. There are large poppy plantations in India, China, Asia Minor, Persia, and Turkey. As already indicated, the white-flowered variety is quite generally cultivated because it yields the most opium.