Opium and the poppy plant

 Danilo Anron

Poppy (Papaver somniferum) is one of the oldest medicinal plants of the Afro-eurasian world.  It is an annual herbaceous plant that grows naturally in Asia Minor and other regions of the Near and Middle East. Its seeds are edibles and are not psychoactive. However, when the capsule is scratched, a milky, rubbery material seeps out which upon hardening turns brown. This substance, which has very special properties, is called opium.

Poppy was domesticated in ancient times. There are tablets in Sumer in Mesopotamia (6,000 or 7,000 years ago) that mention the poppy, and medicinal Assyrian tablets relate to its healing power. In the seventeenth century BC Egyptian doctors prescribed opium for children crying, just as many centuries later, the Victorian nannies would use opiates to calm babies.

Historically, opium was not smoked, but rather was drunk with wine or swallowed as pills. It was (and is) used to relieve pain, achieve a state of euphoria or as an aphrodisiac.

In ancient Crete poppy was planted from Minoan times (third and second millennium before the common era).

There are ceramic jars dating 1,500 bd in Cyprus showing stylized incisions in poppy capsules ^18.. Twelve century BC ivory pipes were also found in a temple of the same island an it is thought they were used to inhale the fumes of opium (one of the few examples of "smoking pipes" that is reported in the Mediterranean before European expansion in America).

The Greek feminine deity Demeter, the Mother Goddess, was both goddess of grain and poppies.

In Greece and Rome opium was usually administered as a pain reliever. To this end it was recommended by the founders of the European medicine: Hippocrates (c.400 BC), Dioscorides and Galen (130-200 AD).

It is thought that the potion that prepared Helen of Troy in Homer's Odyssey " to quell the pain and sorrow and bring oblivion every discomfort" was prepared based on the opium poppy. Similarly, some argue that the vinegar mingled with "gall" offered to Christ in the cross (Matthew 27:34) also contained opium. It is symptomatic that in ancient Hebrew, the word used to designate the "gall" Rosh , referred also to opium.

From the seventh and eighth centuries, medicine opium was also part of the Islamic civilization. Arab traders spread the opium in Persia, India, the Malay region and finally China.

In 1530 the German-Swiss physician   Paracelsus developed a new type of medicine that somehow integrated classical and medieval practices. Paracelsus was a fan of the powers of opium which he called "the stone of immortality" and always carry it with him.

The opium-based drug that had more significance was the tincture laudanum. It was prepared by dissolving opium in alcohol.  Paracelsus had great success with this recipe spreading rapidly throughout Europe.

For more than three centuries laudanum was "the" medicine that could not miss in any medical kit.  Its use spread to the affluent classes in all the states of the continent, to the clubs of London and Paris and to high political and military spheres. For most of the nineteenth century most of the aristocrats had become fans of laudanum (ie opium and alcohol).

The Muslim advance carried opium consumption to India, which, over time, would end up being the largest producer of poppy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mogul monarchs gave opium to their soldiers, and emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, drunk opium in his wine. 

Even today, in India construction workers and agricultural laborers a small ball of opium into their mouths ingesting it with their tea. However, in the Indian subcontinent, opium consumption never reached the social dimension which would  later reach into China, especially during the nineteenth century during the Opium War.
From "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anron, Piriguazu Ediciones. 
Blog in Spanish: daniloanton.blogspot.com

Revolutionary theory about  the origin of the Earth crust

According to Prof. Vicente Sanchez-Cela.

Danilo Anton

It all started with the accretion and compaction of planetesimals for the formation of the planet Earth.

As a result of these processes impact minerals of high density were formed. They were related to the impactites (rocks formed after a meteoric impact). These dense minerals had a very similar composition to the crust (quartz and feldspar) but with higher density.

In the crust silicon dioxide (SiO2) crystallizes as quartz but in a high density (mantle) environment crystallized in higher density SiO2 minerals such as coesite and stishovite.

It should be noted that quartz density is 2.65, while coesite and stishovite densities are respectively 2.92 and 4.35. All three (quartz, coesite and stishovite) have the same formula (SiO2). Another difference betweem these three minerals is the packing of their atoms, quartz is trigonal, coesite is monoclinic and stishovite is tetragonal.

Similarly, crust feldspars with density 2.56 (potassium feldspar) and 2.61 (sodium feldspar), have been preceded (during planetary formation and subsequent geological eras) by minerals of high density: K Hollandite and Na Hollandite with approximate density 4. Both crystallize in the monoclinic system. Other high density minerals that may exist in the mantle are the perovskite silicate (magnesium iron silicate and calcium silicate) and post-perovskite (magnesium silicate). The latter have densities higher than 3.

According to this approach, we can consider that in the crust the family of silicate minerals of low density (granitic) predominate while the high density family of silicate minerals (which Sanchez Cela call " densialites ") are dominant in the mantle.¹

Despite having different densities the chemical composition of both petro-mineralogical groups (crust and mantle groups) are similar.

Sanchez-Cela's theory is based on the phase changes of dense minerals in the outer mantle (coesite, stishovite, hollandites, perovskites and post-perovskites) which increase in volume decreasing their density. The typical mineral phase of low density silicates (quartz, feldspars) is generated in this way. This change in phase is exothermic producing magmatic fusion, intrusions and volcanic eruptions.

At the same time, the expansion in volume of the rock masses produce the formation of orogenic changes in continents and oceans and other protruding geological and geomorphologic features.

Danilo Antón, based on the theory of Vicente Sanchez Cela (La Energía en los Procesos Geológicos, 2005).

¹ Silicon dioxide SiO2, currently crystallizes mainly as quartz, before crystallized with higher density forming coesite or stishovite. It should be noted that quartz has a density of 2.65, coesite, 2.92 and stishovite 4.35. All three have the same formula (SiO2). Another difference is the packing of atoms. quartz is trigonal, coesite is monoclinic and stishovite tetragonal.

Similarly feldspars with density 2.56 (potassium feldspar) and 3.61 (sodium feldspar) in the crust, have been preceded (when planetary formation and subsequent geological eras) by higher density minerals: K Hollandite and Na Hollandite with approximate density of 4. Both crystallize in the monoclinic system. Other high density minerals that may existing in the mantle are the perovskite silicate (magnesium iron silicate and calcium silicate) and post-perovskite (magnesium silicate).

Challenging the  official geological paradigm

An innovative and original theory by Prof. Vicente Sanchez-Cela

Danilo Anton

Let me share some ideas of the Spanish geologist Professor Vicente Sanchez-Cela. I think he has developed a theory about the formation of the earth's crust, including the origin of granites (the most common rocks in the crust) that deeply changes many concepts that are usually accepted in geology,

Prof. Sanchez-Cela is a geologist with vast experience and extensive knowledge of petrology, petrography, mineralogy and structural geology. In his theory he holds that deep mantle rocks have a similar chemical composition to the Earth crust but different crystal structures and higher density. The outer mantle rocks gradually have lost density through change of crystalline phase of its minerals. These processes generate heat, causing magmatic chambers, intrusions and volcanism, There ìs neoformation of the crust with expansion of the earth's circumference. It also puts into question the currently accepted theory of plate tectonics and continental drift.

Sanchez-Cela's theory is revolutionary and may arise smiles of disdain in many academics that are convinced of the accuracy of the official paradigm and do not accept the challenge that the new theory is presenting.

I think that the system proposed by Sanchez-Cela is original, innovative and seduces from the logical point of view. May be is no true, or perhaps is only partially accurate, but I'm sure it can incorporate valuable elements to the current geological interpretations about the origin of the Earth's crust and continents.

In the following text, I present the outlines of Vicente Sanchez-Cela's theory that I believe should be considered very seriously and finally would like to pay tribute to this Spanish scientist with long experience who has dared to rethink the geological orthodoxy from his extensive experience and deep theoretical knowledge. I invite you to share some of his ideas in this same blog:: Theory of the Origin of the Earth's Crust.