NARCOTICS, in medicine, soporiferous medicines, which excite a stupor.
Narcotics, called also hypnotics, anodynes, or stupefactive, are said, by Hoffman, to be such kind of remedies as, by their subtle, noxious, and deleterious exhalations, diminish, or quite destroy, the sense and motion of the solid parts. Among narcotics, the most eminent are those which are usually prepared for medicinal uses of the whole poppy, especially opium; as also all those prepared of mandragoras, hyoscyamus, stramonium, and datura.