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Bob Maddox

Bob is a retired teacher living in the Alpujarra for most of the year with his wife Belinda. His interests include painting, photography and of course writing. He researches his articles meticulously and always manages to include his own brand of humour. Whatever the subject they are ‘a good read’. He has been a keen supporter of the Moor Times and has contributed many interesting pieces since its conception in September 2009.

Articles by Bob Maddox       

Papaver – The Heroic Weed

Bob Maddox admits to his long-term addiction as the Alpujarra dresses itself in the red and green of early summer.

During the summer of 1874, a man rejoicing in the splendid name of C.R. Alder-Wright, was working late in his laboratory.  Wright was a chemist at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, and he was on the trail of a new drug which he hoped would revolutionise the treatment of pain.  Morphine had long been in routine use as the pain killer of choice.  Its very name, derived from that of the Greek God of Dreams, Morpheus, told of its analgesic properties.  But morphine was causing problems; it was proving to be highly addictive and a safe substitute was needed.

Wright was experimenting with combining morphine with a series of acids to reduce its addictive properties and eventually succeeded in producing a new form of morphine called Diacetylmorphine, which tests showed to be more potent than the original compound.  And there the matter rested for 23 years, Wright never did cash in on his new discovery.

Enter Felix Hoffmann, a young chemist at Germany's Bayer pharmaceutical company.  Hoffman was repeating Wright's experiments and like Wright before him, he succeeded in producing a substance over three times more potent than the original morphine.  Bayer were onto a winner; a wonder drug substitute for morphine.  But what to call it?

Since diacetylmorphine lacked the sparkle necessary for successful marketing campaign, a snappier name was needed.  Bayer’s marketing division came up with a name they felt highlighted the new drugs heroic role in the battle against pain.  From the German word ‘heroisch’ the name Heroin was born.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  

Bayer ceased production of heroin twelve years later as its more pernicious effects made themselves apparent and the addicts and problems piled up; but not until it had been routinely prescribed as a morphine substitute to millions and as a cough medicine for children.  Oh dear.

Papaver Somniferum (the name means ‘sleep bringer’) is the Latin name for the plant which gives us the milky sap from which opium, morphine and heroin are derived.  That a single plant could be the source of so much human misery and yet so much good, is just one chapter in the fascinating story of Papaver, that great family of flowers which of course, we all know as ‘Poppies’

Let me confess right here, that I am myself a long term addict of many of the products of Papaver.  For several weeks a year I find myself transported to another world, hallucinogenic in its intensity; a world where the complimentary colours red and green dance across the landscape in a visual blizzard as a cousin of Somniferum makes its appearance to blitz the senses.  And it’s happening right now across the Alpujarra as the Corn Poppy (Papaver Rhoeas) makes its appearance.

Fields, roadsides, olive groves, even those road works – any place where the soil has been recently ploughed or disturbed, is likely to undergo a fabulous, vibrant transformation during late spring and early summer as seeds which have lain dormant for years sense the disturbance in the soil and burst into life.  

This is the great survival strategy of the poppy; to lie in wait until the ground is disturbed, then race into life and occupy the land before anything else has a chance to compete.

The origins of the Corn Poppy are uncertain, although it appears likely that as the Neolithic tribes migrated from the eastern Mediterranean northwards across Europe at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, the Corn Poppy followed, forging a close link with agriculture and becoming the major weed of cultivation.

As it followed the plough across Europe, so the Corn Poppy added its own haunting beauty to the agricultural landscape.  This was a favourite subject of Claude Monet, whose paintings ‘Red Poppies at Argenteuil’ and ‘The Field of Poppies’ capture perfectly the breezy, audacious spirit of Papaver Rhoeas.  Interestingly, poppy seed oil was used in the making of the oil paints used by Monet.

But it was in the fire and flying metal of mechanized warfare that the most poignant image of the Corn Poppy was to be forged.  As the earth was wounded by shells and ploughed by the trenches of World War 1., so Papaver, with its trick of exploiting disturbed ground, flared out across the muddy battlefields of Western Europe.  Where all else was desolation and death, the Corn Poppy stood bright and clear, its scarlet flower so evocative of the spilt blood of the youth of Europe.

Outside a field dressing station near Ypres in May 1915, a young Canadian surgeon, John McCrae sat on the steps of an ambulance as he awaited the next consignment of wounded.  Around him, the graves of the dead, their freshly turned soil marked by scarlet poppies, moved McCrae to scribble a short poem in his notebook.  

The story tells that McCrae was dissatisfied with his poem and discarded it.  It was later found by a fellow officer, who sent a copy to newspapers in England.  Finally published in Punch magazine on 8th December 1915, ‘In Flanders Fields’ was to become the great iconic voice of Remembrance and the scarlet Corn Poppy, its image.

But poppies can also make for good eating.  Maybe poppy seed oil salad dressing is your thing? Or perhaps a nice bagel, muffin, loaf or hamburger bun liberally scattered with those attractive nutty-tasting poppy seeds?  Have a care though; they are ever-so-slightly narcotic, as was demonstrated on the fabulous TV series ‘Brainiac: Science Abuse’, where volunteers were tested positive for opiates after eating only two bagels.  

However, this appears to have entirely escaped the attention of  the population of Lithuania, where a traditional Christmas Eve dish consists of round yeast biscuits soaked in a mixture of ground poppy seeds and water – or maybe that’s the only way to tolerate Christmas in Lithuania?

Incidentally, there are around 1,980,000 average poppy seeds to the kilogram, just in case you had ever wondered, which I hadn't.  Also, poppy seeds are extremely popular with canaries, which might explain why they sing so much.

In addition to providing us with a range of opiates without which modern orthodox medicine would be unrecognizable, poppies have also retained a firm foot in the herbal remedy camp. A host of respiratory complaints including Bronchitis, are said to respond favourably to poppy treatment. Next time you have a cough, try adding a few fresh poppy leaves and petals to a mug of boiling water.  I did and found it made a splendidly attractive and oddly refreshing pink drink, which had  absolutely no effect whatever on my cough (until I added a pint of brandy).  Next time, I’m back on the penicillin again.

Suffering from anxiety?  Poppies to the rescue.  Not surprisingly perhaps; after all, these were the flowers that old wicked witch used to put Dorothy to sleep in ‘The Wizard of Oz’.  Vertigo?  Try opium poppy seeds and coriander in equal amounts, mixed with rose water and a touch of sugar to kill the vile taste.  Take enough and you fall over – and all without the aid of vertigo.  Amazing.

Art, poetry, history, mythology, medicine, cooking and war – there are few aspects of human endeavour which remain untouched by the fabulous poppy. This staggeringly beautiful plant, with its 28 genera and over 250 individual species, is inextricably bound up with our lives.  And nowhere is this more obvious than where our ploughs and blades have passed over the olive groves, fields, roadsides and ditches of this beautiful land during the months of May and June.

The Heroic Weed is out there waiting for you – it would be a crime to miss it.

© 2010 Bob Maddox

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