Possessing the above properties, it is remarkable that opium, combined in a certain proportion with vegetable acids, instead of inducing, will prevent sleep. In consequence of which it has often, though injuriously, been used by persons who are obliged to devote their nights to sedentary or active pursuits. It is likewise deserving of remark, that the _seeds_ of the poppy have none of the narcotic qualities of the opium. They are mild, sweet, and nutritive; and yield, by pressure, an oil little inferior to that of almonds. So numerous are these seeds that more than 30,000 have been counted from a single seed-vessel. _Laudanum_ is a liquid preparation from opium and spirit of wine; and is used for most of the same purposes to which opium is applied. Its effects, as a poison, may be counteracted in the same manner as those of opium. 172. _ARNATTO, or ANNOTTA, is a red dyeing drug, generally imported in lumps wrapped up in leaves, and produced from the pulp of the seed-vessels of a shrub_ (Bixa orellana) _which grows spontaneously in the East and West Indies._ _This shrub is usually seven or eight feet high, and has heart-shaped and pointed leaves. The flowers, which have each ten large peach-coloured petals, appear in loose clusters at the ends of the branches, and produce oblong and somewhat hairy pods._ The seed-vessels of the arnatto shrub are, in appearance, somewhat like those of the chesnut (235). They each contain from thirty to forty seeds, enveloped in a kind of pulp (of red colour and unpleasant smell), which is not much unlike the paint called red lead, when mixed with oil. In the West Indies the method of extracting the pulp, and preparing it for sale, is to boil it, and the seeds which are mixed with it, in clear water, until the latter are perfectly extricated. They are then taken out, and the pulp is allowed to subside to the bottom of the water; this is drawn off, and the sediment is distributed into shallow vessels, and gradually dried in the shade until it is sufficiently hard to be worked into lumps or masses for sale. Arnatto, though made in the West Indies, is an object of no great commercial importance; the demand for it not being sufficient to give much encouragement to its culture. It is now chiefly prepared by the Spaniards in South America, and for the purpose principally of mixing with chocolate, to which, in their opinion, it gives a pleasing colour and great medicinal virtue, as well as an improved flavour. The chief consumption of arnatto in England depends upon painters and dyers; and it is supposed that _Scott's nankeen dye_ is nothing but arnatto dissolved in alkaline ley. This drug is sometimes used by the Dutch farmers to give a rich colour to butter; and the double Gloucester and several other kinds of cheese are coloured with it. Poor people occasionally use it instead of saffron.