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Mark Merlin

Opium (from opos, the Greek word for juice) is harvested by incising the unripe capsule and collecting the milky latex. The ancients partook of its psychoactive powers by burning and inhaling the opium sap, by drinking it in a solution of honey or wine, or by drying it out and eating it whole. The desiccated capsule (shown here, comapre with drawing) would have been included in dried-flower arrangements.