Letters to the Editor

Abstract

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir: I read with pleasure Scott F. Gilbert's paeon to punning in the autumn issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (vol. 28, p. 148). But, alas, one of his examples was misspoken. The reluctant person who would notjoin the surfers really said, "He also surfs who only stands and wades." Oscar D. Ratnoff Department of Medicine Western Reserve University Clevefand, Ohio 44106 Dear Sir: Levinthal's contributions to the history of ideas about opium [1] were enjoyable to this writer, except for the puzzling resurrections of the Sumerian "joy plant," the Hebrew "merosh," and the Chinese "o-fu-yung"—each of which I thought to have been buried [2]. Are there some new data I have missed? REFERENCES 1.Levinthal, C. F. Milk of paradise/milk of hell—the history of ideas about opium. Perspect. Biol. Med. 28:561-577, 1985. 2.Sapira, J. D. Speculations concerning opium abuse and world history. Perspect. Biol. Med. 18:379-398, 1975. Joseph D. Sapira Medical Center, Veterans Administration St. Lows, Missouri 63125 Dear Sir: Since I was not aware of Sapira's article [1] when I wrote the history of opium review [2], it should not be inferred that my references to the possible Hebrew, Sumerian, and Chinese origins of the word "opium" represent a refutation of Sapira's position on the matter. It is now clear that while rosh (head) is interPermission to reprint a letter printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. 636 Letters to the Editor preted by some Hebrew scholars as referring sometimes to opium, the phrase me-rosh in Jeremiah 8:14 and 9:14 is literally translated as "water of the head" and interpreted as "poison water." As Sapira points out, only if the Hebrew phrase had been meetz-rosh would the correct translation have been "juice of the head." An erroneous translation, unfortunately, was reported by Macht in his 1915 review [3], which served as one of the references for my article. Merlin [4] has recently confirmed Sapira's position that physical evidence is lacking for a Sumerian conjunctive ideogram hul-gil, despite earlier reports by Terry and Pellens [5]. The Chinese word, o-fu-yung, derived from the Arabic, has been reported by Beeching [6, p. 24] as having "signified foreign medicine." It was inaccurate to state that "foreign medicine" was a literal translation. references 1.Sapira, J. D. Speculations concerning opium abuse and world history. Perspect. Biol. Med. 18:379-398, 1975. 2.Levinthal, C. F. Milk of Paradise/milk of hell—the history of ideas about opium. Perspect. Biol. Med. 28:561-577, 1985. 3.Macht, D. I. The history of opium and some of its preparations and alkaloids. JAMA 64:477-481, 1915. 4.Merlin, M. D. On the Trail ofthe Ancient Opium Poppy. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated Univ. Press, 1984. 5.Terry, C. E., and Pellen, M. The Opium Problem. Montclair, N.J.: Patterson-Smith, 1970. (Originally published 1928.) 6.Beeching, J. The Chinese Opium Wars. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Charles F. Levinthal Hofstra University Hempstead, Long Island, New York 11550 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 29, 4 ¦ Summer 1986 \ 637 ...