Papavera, _Poppies_; there are several species, but of the garden poppy, which they call _Thylacitis_, the seed is edible, and when eaten with bread is moderately soporific. That species which is called _Rhæas_, because its seed soon falls off, is stronger than the garden. It is therefore not eaten by itself, but a small quantity of it is mixed with much honey. That which has a sessile head has seeds which are black and strongly medicinal, being considerably cold. That the top of which is longer and more contracted, is the most strongly medicinal of all, so as to induce torpor even to mortification. For it and its juice, which is called, _per excellentiam_, opium, belong to the fourth order of congealing medicines. But that variety which is called _Cornutum_ is possessed of detergent powers, so that the decoction of it when drunk is serviceable in hepatic complaints. Its leaves and flowers cleanse foul ulcers and remove eschars. That species which is called _Heraclium_ and _Spumosum_, has seeds which purge phlegm. * * * * * COMMENTARY. In the Fifth Book we have treated fully of the different species of poppy known to the ancients. See also Schulze (Toxicol. Vet.) The _Rhæas_ would seem to be the _Papaver dubium_, the _sativum_ is the _P. Rhæas_. The Papaver cornutum appears to be the _Glaucium luteum_, Scop. The _P. spumeum_ may be the _Gratiola officinalis_, Angl. Hedge Hyssop. The ancients distinguished two kinds of the inspissated juice of the poppy: the one was the juice obtained by wounding the poppy-heads, and was called μήκωνος ὄπος, and ὄπιον; the other was an expressed juice, much weaker than this, called μηκώνιον. The second sort is not known at present. We will treat more fully of opium under that head, and therefore we shall dismiss the present subject with a briefer notice than we should otherwise have thought it necessary to bestow upon it. The views of the Arabians regarding the different kinds of poppy may be best learned from Avicenna (ii, 2, 563.) He copies, however, almost all his information from Dioscorides. He recommends the application of the Papaver cornutum in diseases of the eye, with certain cautions, explained under opium. He follows Dioscorides in strongly commending the leaves of the same as an application to foul ulcers, when he says they have the effect of removing all the eschars upon the sores. Dioscorides, by the way, mentions that the veterinarians used the horned poppy for removing the albugo and nebulæ on the eyes of cattle. He speaks favorably of the effects of the poppy in general for the cure of hot catarrhs, defluxions on the breast, and hæmoptysis. See further Serapion (c. 72); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 533); Averrhoes (Collig. v, 42.) The last of these joins Avicenna in approving of the poppy for affections of the chest. Ebn Baithar, in different parts of his great work, treats of the several species of poppy noticed under this head. Μῆλα,