From Greek mekonion, diminutive of mekon, poppy ( papaver somniferum). It is the juice obtained from the ancient heads of the poppy with anesthetizing alcaloids and sedatives. In this sense he uses the term the peripathic master. In Biology and Medicine is also the saving, first blackish, mucilaginous and inodorous stools of the newborn. With this second sense it is also used by Hippocrates in the 4th century BC. C. , perhaps because of the similarity in the color and appearance of these faeces with the opium or latex obtained from the poppy.
