256 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY 



Morphin, which is the active substance in opium, is an 

 alkaloid that was first separated from the poppy plant about 

 a hundred years ago. In fact, this was the first alkaloid to 

 be systematically studied. 



From a medical point of view morphin is the most useful of the 

 alkaloids, but it stands next to cocain as a habit-forming drug, and, 

 from the very fact of its extensive use in medicine, has ruined 

 thousands of times as many victims as cocain has. In small doses 

 it lowers the heart action, slows the breathing, deadens pain, and 

 induces a dreamy, quiet feeling ending in sleep. It acts on the 

 nerves that carry impulses from the brain, weakening the control 

 of the muscles. In larger doses it causes the pupils of the eyes to 

 contract until they are almost closed, and lowers the respiration 

 dangerously near the stopping point; in fact, death by morphin is 

 brought about by stopping the respiration. As with other drugs, there 

 is a reaction later, in which the effects are to some extent reversed. 



It has been said that the widespread use of opium has been 

 the greatest obstacle to the development and progress of the 

 Chinese people. So degrading are the effects of the drug 

 that in 1907 the Chinese government finally prohibited the 

 raising of the poppy and the traffic in opium; and in 1918 

 the government of Tunis did the same, going so far as to order 

 all wild and all cultivated poppy plants destroyed. 



While morphin has been most commonly administered by 

 the smoking of opium, the habit of using it may be traced to 

 its administration as medicine or by injection under the skin. 

 Many drug-store preparations contain morphin, and it has 

 been found that many patent medicines attained to large sales 

 only because they cultivated the morphin craving in the people 

 who were foolish enough to take them. All the pain-killers 

 and soothing sirups carry the danger of developing a craving 

 for morphin, since they depend upon the morphin for what- 

 ever useful effects they produce. 



Nearly all the patent medicines have depended for their 

 commercial success upon the fact that stimulants and narcotics 



