Show OPIUM IN CHINA the chinese imperial maritime customs has just issued a small par pamphlet niblet eu entitled titled opium historical the poppy in china by dr elkins the well known scholar and missionary of pekin the importance of the little is that it demolishes the proposition sedulously propagated of late years in this countey that opium was introduced in recent years from india to china dr edkins says that in fact the arabs took it to that country in the eighth century at a time when there was a flourishing trade between canton and the ports of the red bed sea and the persian gulf the medicinal properties of the drug are mentioned ti in a wark rk published in the tenth century prom from this time it was cultivated for these properties and from the fifteenth century is appears that the manufacture of native opium has existed iu Ju china buchina and it is not only in recent years that there has been both native and foreign opium in this country the smoking of opium came in with the smoking of tobacco in the seventeenth century various ingredients says dr edkins were in various countries mixed with tobacco to try their effect among them being opium the danchus tried to prohibit the use of tobacco by edicts as stringent as those issued against opium but in vain among the causes of this failure the writer Inu includes ludes the love of opium smoking by many in high positions court favorites and others whom it would be very difficult to punish opium smoking began in formosa and amoy where to babeo smoking was first introduced the first edict against the practice was in 1729 opium was a common product in cunnan in 1736 1786 and in those days this distant I 1 province was far remote from the influence of any foreign country whatever except burmah london times |