Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    81/832 page 57
    Indian opium yields from 60 to 68 per cent, of matter soluble in cold water.1 The peculiar constituents of opium are of basic, acid, or neutral nature. Some *of these substances were observed in opium as early as the 17th and 18th century, and designated Magisterium Opii. Bucholz in 1802 vainly endeavoured to obtain a salt from the extract by crystallization. In 1803, however, Charles Derosne, an apothecary of Paris, in diluting a syrupy aqueous extract of opium, observed crystals of the substance now called Narcotine, which he prepared pure. He believed that the same body was obtained by precipitating the mother liquor with an alkali, but what he so got was morphine. It is needless to pursue the further researches of Derosne. Ingenious as they were, it was reserved for Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertiirner, apothecary of Eimbeck in Hanover (nat. 1783, ob. 1841) to discover their true interpretation. Sertiirner had been engaged since 1805 with the chemical investi- gation of opium, and in 1816 he summarized his results in the state- ment that he had enriched science (we now translate his own words2) —“ not only with the knowledge of a remarkable new vegetable acid [Mekonsaure (meconic acid) which he had made known as Opiumsaure in 1806], but also with the discovery of a new alkaline salifiable base, Morphium, one of the most remarkable substances, and apparently related to ammonia.” Sertiirner in fact distinctly recognised the basic nature and the organic constitution of morphium (now called Morphine, Morphia, or Morphinum), and prepared a number of its crystalline salts. He likewise demonstrated the poisonous nature of these sub- stances by experiments on himself and others. Lastly, he pointed out, though very incorrectly, the difference between morphine and the so- called Opium-salt (Narcotine) of Derosne. It is possible that this latter chemist may have had morphine in his hands at the same time as Sertiimer, or even earlier. This honour is also due to Sdguin, whose paper “ Sur VOpium]' read at the Institute, December 24, 1804, was, strange to say, not published till 1814.3 To Serturner, however, undoubtedly belongs the merit of first making known the existence of organic alkalis in the vegetable kingdom,4—a series of bodies practically interminable. As to opium, it still remains after nearly seventy years ■ a nidus of new substances. Solutions of morphine in acids or in alkalis rotate the plane of polarization to the left. The morphine in opium is combined with meconic acid, and is therefore easily soluble in water.5 * The Narcotine is present in the free state, and can be extracted by chloroform, boiling alcohol, benzol, ether, or volatile oils,8 but not by water. It dissolves in 3 parts of chloroform, in 20 of boiling alcohol, in 21 of benzol, in 40 of boiling ether. Its alkaline properties are very weak, and it does not affect 1 Calculated from official statements given by Eatwell in the paper quoted at p. 50. 2 Gilbert’s Annalen der Physik, lv. (1817) 57 • 8 Annales de Chimie, xcii. (1814) 225, 4 The Institut de France on the 27th June, 1831, awarded to Serturner a prize of 2000 francs—“pour avoir reconnu la nature alcaline de la morphine, et avoir ainsi ouvert une voie qui produit de grandcs ddcouvertes m^dicales.” 6 There are exceptional cases in which it is asserted that water does not take up the whole amount of morphine. 6 In large crystals by means of oil of turpentine.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3