Poppies and Medicine

Description

"To treat pain in war, morphine is unrivalled", Dr James Le Fanu.First World War soldiers were familiar with the Corn Poppies flowering on the battlefields, but it was another poppy that provided the morphine used for their pain relief.Opium comes from the dried sap of the Opium Poppy. This robust plant, which grows to a metre or more, produces bitter tasting alkaloids to deter animals from eating it. It is these alkaloids that make up the raw opium.Opium has been used throughout history to induce sleep, as an astringent, to reduce perspiration and muscle spasms and as an expectorant.Morphine was first isolated from opium in 1804 and named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Morphine provides strong pain relief but is also very addictive. Morphine can be further processed to produce heroin and other opioids used medicinally or for the illegal drugs trade.