PAPAVERACE^E. I. PAPAVER. 



133 



less intoxicating, and is taken with a spoon or made up into 

 lozenges, stamped with the words Mash Allah, literally meaning 

 " The work of God." The Tartar couriers, who travel great 

 distances, and with astonishing rapidity, take nothing else to 

 support them during their journeys (Dall. const, p. 78.). There 

 is, however, some reason to suppose that the Mash Allah or 

 Maslash of the Turks contains other narcotics, as those of hemp 

 Lolium temulentum, as well as opium. 



The use of opium for the purpose of exhilarating the spirits, 

 has long been known in Turkey, Syria, and China, and of late 

 years it has been unfortunately adopted by many, particularly 

 females, in this country. Russel says that in Syria, when com- 

 bined with spices and other aromatics, he has known it taken to 

 the amount of three drachms in 24 hours. Its habitual use 

 cannot be too much reprobated. It impairs the digestive organs, 

 consequently the vigour of the whole body, and destroys also 

 gradually the mental energies. The effects of opium on those 

 addicted to its use, says Russel, are at first obstinate costiveness, 

 succeeded by diarrhoea and flatulence, with the loss of appetite 

 and a sottish appearance. The memories of those who take it 

 soon fail, they become prematurely old, and then sink into the 

 grave objects of scorn and pity. Mustapha Shatoor, an opium- 

 eater in Smyrna, took daily 3 drachms of crude opium. The 

 visible effects at the time were the sparkling of his eyes and 

 great exhilaration of spirits. He found the desire of increasing 

 his dose growing upon him. He seemed twenty years older 

 than he really was ; his complexion was very sallow, his legs small, 

 his gums eaten away, and his teeth laid bare to the sockets. 

 He could not rise without swallowing half a drachm of opium. 

 (Phil, trans, xix. p. 289.) 



M. Sertuerner infused four ounces of powdered opium in 

 repeated portions of cold distilled water, and filtered the solu- 

 tion through cloth. It was evaporated in a glass vessel, with 

 a gentle heat, to 8 ounces ; which, after standing 8 days, depo- 

 sited 6 grains of sulphate of potass. The remaining fluid 

 was diluted with distilled water, and yielded a flocculent pre- 

 cipitate on the addition of caustic ammonia, which, after being 

 washed successively with sulphuric ether, caustic ammonia, 

 and alcohol, yielded 3 drachms of a fine brownish-white pow- 

 der, to which M. Sertuerner gave the name of Morphium, now 

 Morphia, and which may be further purified by solution in 

 boiling alcohol. It seemed to be perfectly free from ammonia 

 yet it possessed all the characteristics of genuine alkali, colour- 

 ing rhubarb brown and fernambuc violet, and forming neutral 

 salts with acids. It has a peculiar bitter astringent taste, and 

 its solution leaves a red stain on the skin. Its crystals are 

 very obtuse, single or double pyramids, with a square or long 

 rectangular base, or prisms with trapezoid base. It dissolves in 

 82 parts of boiling water, from which it crystallizes on cooling ; 

 in 36 of boiling and 42 of cold alcohol, and in 8 of sulphuric 

 ether. The fluid from which the Morphia was precipitated, 

 after being heated to 120 Fah. to expel the ammonia, was fil- 

 tered, and a solution of muriate of barytes or of acetate of lead, 

 added as long as there was any precipitate. The white preci- 

 pitate, when washed and dried, weighed 7 drachms, and consisted 

 of the barytes mixed with a new acid, to which M. Sertuerner 

 gave the name of Meconic, and which he separated by sulphuric 

 acid. This mode of obtaining it has not, however, succeeded 

 with others, but M. Choulant, by mixing the meconate of barytes 

 with an equal weight of vitreous boracic acid, and subliming, ob- 

 tained the meconic acid in the form of shining scales of a fine 

 white salt. Its taste is at first sour and cooling, but afterwards 

 unpleasantly bitter. It reddens vegetative blues, and combines 

 with alkalies and earths, and gives a cherry red colour to solu- 

 tions of iron ; its crystals are quadrangular tables, and it is 

 soluble in twice its weight in water and also in alcohol and ether. 



When purified by repeated solutions, it crystallized in rectan- 

 gular prisms, with rhomboidal bases. It was solid, white, had 

 no taste or smell, was insoluble in cold water and soluble in 400 

 parts of boiling water, did not affect vegetable blues, was soluble 

 in 24 parts of boiling alcohol, and 110 cold, as well as in 

 hot ether and oil of almonds and olives below the boiling 

 temperature, &c. When burnt it gives out a thick smoke and 

 ammoniacal odour. It was supposed by Sertuerner to be me- 

 conate of Morphia, but Robiquet considered it as a peculiar prin- 

 ciple which he has called Narcotin, and has shewn that it may 

 be obtained almost pure by acting upon the soft watery extract 

 of opium by ether, which dissolves scarcely any thing but the 

 Narcotin. M. Robiquet has altered and improved upon Ser- 

 tuerner's process for obtaining Morphia by boiling the watery 

 solution of opium with pure magnesia, and then extracting the 

 Morphia from the precipitate of alcohol. So far as it has been 

 analyzed, the essential constituents of opium seem to be 1 . mor- 

 phia, 2. narcotin, 3. meconic acid, 4. an unnamed acid, 5. a 

 substance like caoutchouc, 6. -one like febrin, 7. a resin, 8. gum. 



Opium is not fusible, but is softened even by the heat of the 

 fingers. It is highly inflammable. It is partially soluble botli 

 in alcohol and in water. The solutions of opium are transparent, 

 and have a brown and vinous colour. The watery solution is 

 not decomposed by alcohol. The narcotic virtues of opium are 

 imparted by distillation to alcohol and to water ; and they are 

 diminished, or entirely dissipated, by long boiling, roasting, or 

 great age. The part of opium which is not soluble either in 

 water or alcohol is chiefly caoutchouc. By evaporating a watery 

 solution of opium to the consistence of syrup Desrosnes ob- 

 tained a precipitate which was increased by diluting the extract 

 with a little cold water. He dissolved this in hot alcohol, from 

 which it again separated on cooling. 



M.M. Orfila and Magendie have each made experiments to 

 ascertain the effects of the various principles contained in opium, 

 but these physiologists do not agree in their results. Pure crys- 

 tallized morphia has little or no effect, on account of its little solu- 

 bility in the juices of the stomach ; but all its solutions in acids, 

 oil, and alcohol, excite the same narcotic effects as the opium 

 itself, and in a smaller dose. Magendie considers the narcotin 

 as the exciting principle of opium ; but this is denied by Orfila, 

 who asserts that it produces nausea, vomiting, debility, accele- 

 rated circulation, and death, without the vertigo or affection of 

 the senses, palsy of the extremities, plaintive cries or convulsions, 

 which arise from morphia. 



Opium has been used with good effects in numerous diseases, 

 particularly in intermittent fevers ; typhoid fevers, accompanied 

 with watchfulness and diarrhoea. When combined wilh calomel, it 

 has lately been much employed in inflammations from local causes, 

 such as wounds, fractures, burns, absorption of morbid poisons, 

 as in swelled testicles, and even in active inflammation, accompa- 

 nied with watchfulness, pain, and spasm, after blood-letting. In 

 small pox, when the convulsions before eruption are frequent, or 

 when the accompanying fever is of a typhoid type, opium is libe- 

 rally used : it is likewise given from the fifth day onwards, and is 

 found to allay the pain of suppuration, to promote the ptyalism, 

 and to be otherwise useful. In dysentery, after the use of gentle 

 laxatives, or along with them, opium, independently of any effect 

 it may have on the fever, is of consequence in allaying the tor- 

 mina and tenesmus, and in obviating that laxity of bowels, which 

 so often frequently remain after that disease. In diarrhoea the 

 disease itself generally carries off any offending acrimony ; and 

 then or after purgatives opium is used with great effect even 

 in the most symptomatic cases it seldom fails to alleviate. In 

 cholera and pyrosis it is the best remedy. It is given to allay 

 the pain, and favour the descent of calculi, and to give relief to 

 jaundice and dysuria, proceeding from spasm. In colic it is 



