1-83 
SECOND SITTING. 
Wednesday, September 6th, 10 A.M. 
ON MICROSCOPIC ANALYSIS APPLIED TO PHARMACY. 
BY H. DEANE, E.L.S., AND H. B. BRADY, F.L.S. 
On the Microscopic Examination of Opiates .— Continued Report of Progress. 
Since we had the pleasure, a year ago, of offering a preliminary report on 
the microscopical examination of some of the preparations of Opium, we have 
worked almost continuously in the same line of inquiry, with a view of pre¬ 
senting to this Meeting an outline of the whole subject, as complete as might 
be in our power to make it. But, instead of our investigations narrowing, 
as might have been expected, towards natural and obvious conclusions, they 
appear rather to have led us into a wider and wider field. We find it there¬ 
fore necessary to withhold, for the present, any final report, and propose only 
to give an outline of the form and course our investigation have taken, and to 
take the opportunity of correcting a few inaccuracies which, unawares, had 
crept into our first paper. We may add, as a further reason for delay, that 
a friend, who is at present experimenting on an extensive scale with the 
opium alkaloids, has proposed to incorporate his results with our own at a 
future time. 
It is our first duty to draw attention to the errors above alluded to. These 
are chiefly in connection with the proportion of the various alkaloids existing 
in opium. Relying on the statements contained in Pereira s 1 Materia Me- 
dica,’ we accepted the apparently careful analyses of opium therein detailed, 
. on the authority of Mulder’s analyses, which we now believe to be of ques¬ 
tionable accuracy. We have recently been favoured by Messrs. T. and 
H. Smith, of Edinburgh, with the actual results obtained in working up large 
quantities of Turkey opium; and whilst, at present, we abstain from any 
expression of opinion on such still debated points as the existence and influ- 
fluence of thebolactic acid, we are ready to adopt the proportions set down in 
their table as the most reliable with which we are acquainted. From 100 
parts of tine opium Messrs. Smith have obtained as follows : • 
Morphia . 
Narcotine . 
Thebaine . 
Papaverine 
Meconine . 
Meconic Acid 
Thebolactic Acid 
Codeia . . 
Narceine . . 
10 * 
6 * 
0-15 
1 * 
o-oi 
4 - 
1-25 
0-3 
0*02 
It will be seen, on comparing these figures with those given by Mulder, 
that the discrepancies are quite sufficient to vitiate deductions v\ inch might 
have been drawn from his statements ; but the only point in which we have 
been seriously misled is in the altered importance of narceine as a constituent 
of opium. An average of Mulder’s analyses gives about 8 per cent. of this 
alkaloid, or nearly one-twelfth of the weight of the crude drug, whilst the 
more recent table sets down the amount as only one five-thousandth. We 
must take our choice between two alternatives, and assume either that the 
character of the opiums experimented on must have been widely different, or 
that the narceine of Mulder is not the alkaloid known under the name at the 
