684 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
of it would attain. There was now a considerable difference in different spe¬ 
cimens and in all probability in a short time they would have it in a more uni¬ 
form state than that in which it was supplied at present. He thought, therefore, 
that they might wait a little while before they fixed upon the forms in which 
it should be administered, for they hardly knew what -would be the results 
even of its applications. Medical men were employing it in every direction, 
and without much judgment in some cases ; sometimes it acted beneficially, 
but there were numerous instances within his own knowledge where its action 
had not been so decided or clear as it should be. Tt had attained a celebrity 
in a short space of time, which, compared with the power of manufacturing 
it, was rather astonishing. He had no doubt they would soon have abundance 
of it in the market. At present it was chiefly produced in Germany, and sold 
to the English manufacturers, by whom it had not been made to any great 
extent. There was a subject of a different kind, upon which he should like 
to say a few words that evening, and that was with reference to some of the 
opiums of commerce—the opiums which they were in the habit of using, and 
the high price of which rendered it important that they should be able to make a 
judicious selection of them. He had in his hand a specimen of opium which was 
so low in the proportion of morphia it contained as to make it a very serious 
matter that it should be supplied for the purposes of pharmacy. It contained 
only about 3 per cent, of morphia, and yet if it were placed before a druggist 
he would say,"judging from its appearance, that it was capital opium ; whereas 
it would require three times the quantity of it, at the least, to make a tincture 
which would be of the strength of that contemplated in the Pharmacopoeia 
directions. The price fetched by superior opiums in the market was unusually 
high, and any gentlemen who knew anything of the wholesale drug trade would 
know that they were caught up with avidity. He had also with him a specimen 
of opium which no druggist w-ould buy, for the reason that he probably would 
not understand it; but it contained 12 per cent, of morphia. It was a Persian 
opium, and was in point of fact one of the best specimens intrinsically that 
could be procured. On one occasion he had purchased a chest of this opium ; 
he worked it, and made a considerable profit by the transaction ; and speculating 
upon what he had done, he purchased another chest of ostensibly the same sort 
of opium, but this time he did not get half the quantity of morphia that he did 
out of the first; so that it appeared the Persians were not over-honest. Still 
he should say they might look to the Persians for the production of opiums of a 
superior kind. This was a subject which should be properly studied by those 
who had to deal with this important, if not the most important, article in the 
materia medica ; for whatever narcotics they might introduce, it was probable 
that nothing would supersede that which from time immemorial had been the 
sheet-anchor of the profession. He was glad to say that a certain quantity of 
Persian opium had found its way into the market, but it would not meet with a 
ready sale, because it did not present the external characters likely to attract 
attention. But it was a beautiful opium, and quite unobjectionable in phar¬ 
macy. At present all sorts of prices were asked for it, but he knew from ex¬ 
perience that it could be produced at a reasonable rate, and be thought it would 
tend to check the purely commercial speculations now going on. He should be 
prepared probably to say something more about it at a future meeting, when he 
had completed the working of a large quantity of it which he had in hand. 
But there was no doubt at all in his mind that they had in this opium, if it were 
loyally and properly prepared, an article which was superior to any of the Tur¬ 
key or Egyptian opiums. He remembered examining Egyptian opiums some 
twenty or thirty years ago, and they were then very good, but they got worse 
and worse until they became almost useless. At the last Paris Exhibition he 
spoke to the gentleman who had charge of the Egyptian collection, and he then 
