History
An early 20th century industry manual states that while the opium poppy was grown extensively in Eurasia, most of the world production of poppyseed oil occurred in France and Germany, from poppy seeds imported from other countries. From 1900 to 1911, France and Germany together produced on the order of 60,000,000 kilograms per year. At that time, poppyseed oil was used primarily to dress salads and frequently was adulterated with sesame oil and hazelnut oil to improve the taste of oil from stored (rancid) seeds. Poppyseed oil was used to adulterate olive oil and peach kernel oil. Poor quality poppyseed oil was valuable in the soap industry.
Some pharmaceutical uses of the other major product of Papaver somniferum, opium, were recognized thousands of years ago. In contrast, pharmaceutical uses of poppyseed oil began in the 20th century. Iodized poppyseed oil was the subject of a 1959 article in a pharmaceutical research journal. Various formulations were tried. In 1976 a contrast agent for imaging the liver and spleen using computed tomography was proposed: AG 60.99, an emulsion of poppyseed oil. A 1979 article reports on a new formulation, "improved" over ethiodol: "an emulsion of triglycerides of iodinated poppy seed oil". After a series of experiments in animals, by 1981 iodized poppy seed oil was in use as a contrast agent for computed tomography in humans.
Read more about this topic: Poppyseed Oil
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)