NARCOTINE. 
NO vegetable in the Materia Medica has occupied more of the attention 
of chemists than the somniferous poppy, and its product, opium. No accurate 
chemical analysis of this substance (Opium) was instituted till the year 1803, 
when Derosnes, Sertuerner, Seguin, and others, undertook the investigation.* 
To Derosnes we are indebted for the discovery of Narcotine. This active con- 
stituent of opium, is obtained by exhausting the crude opium in two parts of 
boiling ether, and repeating the operation five successive times. The solu- 
tion obtained by this process, is then mixed and filtered, and the ether vola- 
tilized, until the whole is reduced to three-fourths. The product consists of 
two distinct parts; of a saline crust, consisting of Narcotine united with an 
acid; and of a brown, bitter, acid liquor, also containing Narcotine; an 
acid, and a resin. To obtain the Narcotine from this liquor, it must be sub- 
jected to evaporation, the residuum treated with boiling water, and the Nar- 
cotine precipitated from the filtered liquor by ammonia. The Narcotine is 
afterwards to be separated from the resin and caoutchouc, by treating the sa- 
line crust, in which it is contained, with rectified oil of turpentine, and 
washing the residuum with cold alcohol. This residuum is then dissolved 
in hot alcohol, and the Narcotine precipitated by ammonia. The two pre- 
cipitates are then dissolved in the least possible quantity of hydrochloric 
acid, and again precipitated by ammonia. The Narcotine thus obtained, 
crystallizes in fine needles, or thomboidal prisms. It has no action on vege- 
* According to the analysis of Sertuerner, Robiquet, and Derosne, crude opium is 
composed of—1, a fixed oil; 2, a matter analogous to caoutchouc; 3, a vegeto-animal 
substance, not yet investigated ; 4, mucilage ; 5, feculent matter; 6, resin; 7, vegetable 
fibre ; 8, narcotine; 9, meconic acid; 10, another vegetable acid; and 11, morphine.— 
Annales de Chimie et Physique, vol. v. p. 276. 
Vou. V. = 
