CRYSTALLINE CONSTITUENTS OF OPIUM. 205 



After standing for 24 hours, the ether, which had acquired a brown colour, was 

 drawn off with a syphon and a new supply added ; and this process was repeated 

 as long as it continued to extract any considerable quantity. The ether was 

 then distilled off in the water-bath, and left behind a dark amber-coloured or 

 brown syrupy fluid. The first extracts remained thick and syrupy, even after 24 

 or 48 hours ; but those obtained after the agitation with ether had been several 

 times repeated, occasionally, though not always, became filled with crystals on 

 standing. On the addition of water, a quantity of a thick resinoid substance, not 

 unlike turpentine, separated and remained for some time in a semifluid form at 

 the bottom of the fluid. When hydrochloric acid was dropped into it, part of the 

 resinoid matter dissolved, and the rest solidified into a dark-gray crystalline powder, 

 which was separated by filtration. The hydrochloric solution gave with alkalies a 

 dirty gray precipitate which soon became resinous on standing, with bichloride 

 of platinum a yellow, and with corrosive sublimate a dirty white precipitate. It 

 contained therefore an alkaloid, which was thrown down by ammonia, and purified 

 by solution in alcohol, in which it was highly soluble, and by boiling with animal 

 charcoal. It was deposited on cooling in irregular needles, which nearly filled 

 the fluid, and was shown to be papaverine, by its giving a blue colour with concen- 

 trated sulphuric acid and orange crystals of nitrate of nitropapaverine with nitric 

 acid.* The granular precipitate was impure meconine. It was purified by solu- 

 tion in boiling water, which left a small quantity of an indifferent resin, and the 

 fluid on cooling deposited an abundance of needle-shaped crystals, still retaining 

 a yellowish shade of colour, which was easily removed by animal charcoal. 



Composition of Meconine. 



Meconine has been already analysed by its discoverer Couerbe, and by 

 Regnault. The earlier analyses of the formerf of which the details are not given 

 in the original memoir, led to the formula C 18 H 9 8 ; but as these are admitted to 

 have been erroneous, it is unnecessary to refer to them further. The results con- 

 tained in his second memoir,:]: and those of Regnault, § are collected in the fol- 

 lowing table, in which all are recalculated according to the atomic weight of car- 

 bon now in use. 



* Although the salts of papaverine are highly crystallizable and sparingly soluble, the presence 

 of resinous impurities in the opium fluid has a remarkable tendency to prevent their separating in the 

 crystalline form ; and we see that in this instance a certain quantity of the base had even resisted pre- 

 cipitation by ammonia. It is probably the same peculiarity which prevents its appearing as an im- 

 purity in the hydrochlorate of morphia, prepared by the process of Robertsojt and Gregory. The 

 hydrochlorate of papavei-ine is less soluble than the hydrochlorate of morphia, and a priori we should 

 expect it to be the first substance to deposit from the concentrated fluid, yet the commercial hydro- 

 chlorate of morphia does not contain a trace of it, the whole being retained in the mother liquor. 



f Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 2d Series, vol. 1., p. 347- 



% Ibid., vol. lix., p. 140. 



§ Ibid., vol. lviii., p. 157. 



