**Opium and morphine do not produce in animals the general calmative and hypnotic effects which characterize their use in man, but applied locally, they effectually allay pain and spasm. Owing to the greater excitant action in veterinary patients, the administration of opium does not blunt the perception of pain as effectually as it does in human patients.
**A homeopathic remedy is made from the dried latex. This is used in the treatment of a variety of complaints, including constipation, fevers and insomnia. (See [[Papaver Somniferum (Homeopathy)]]).
* Cancer : Papaver somniferum, also gives rise to a drug called noscapine, a promising cancer-fighting agent already used in some countries as a cough-suppressant. In 1998, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta first showed that noscapine could fight tumors. Since then, research on animals and human cancer cells has suggested that it can shrink breast and prostate cancers and possibly prevent metastasis, the spread of tumors throughout the body that tends to cause cancer death.
==Constituents==