600 CKYPTOPIA, A NEW ALKALOID DISCOVERED IN OPIUM. 
chance of cryptopia being confounded with any of the other principles of 
opium. 
It is already known that a blue colour is produced by the action of vitriol on 
papaverine, but the shade of blue is far more faint, and passes into an orange 
on the addition of a minute particle of powdered nitre. By the same addition 
to the blue of cryptopia green is produced. A faint green can also be produced 
by the addition of nitre to the blue of papaverine; but it is very faint, and 
requires careful management to produce it.* If the colour reactions were the 
only means of distinguishing cryptopia and papaverine from each other, they 
might be mistaken, the one for the other; but differing so much as has been 
shown in other respects, such a mistake is quite impossible. 
As there is some analogy between cryptopia and the substance occasionally 
found in opium by Pelletier, and named by him pseudo-morphia, it appears to 
us right to point out a few features in which they differ so much as to show 
them to be quite distinct substances. They are both very insoluble in alcohol 
and in ether: in this respect they are analogous, but hardly so in any other; 
for instance, the pseudo-morphia separates from an acid liquid, while in such a 
case cryptopia could not separate. 
Pseudo-morphia is insoluble in ammonia, but very soluble in caustic fixed 
alkalies; cryptopia, although insoluble in ammonia, is equally so in caustic 
mineral alkalies. 
Diluted acids favour a little the solution of pseudo-morphia, but there are 
marked differences in this respect, sulphuric and nitric acids dissolving very 
little, muriatic acid sensibly more, and acetic acid much more. Cryptopia dis¬ 
solves readily in any one of these acids. 
Concentrated sulphuric acid turns pseudo-morphia strongly brown, and then 
decomposes it. Cryptopia is turned blue by the same agent, and so far from 
being thus decomposed, if the vessel used for the reaction be left exposed to the 
air, the colour disappears by dilution of the acid, through attraction of moisture. 
If the liquid, next day, be poured off, and a fresh quantity of strong acid again 
added, the blue colour is reproduced ; and the same result may be brought out 
three or four times successively, the blue, of course, becoming more and more 
faint each time.t 
Concentrated nitric acid turns pseudo-morphia red, passing into yellow, 
exactly as in the case of morphia. Cryptopia is coloured yellowish-orange, and 
the colour does not change. 
Pseudo-morphia, like morphia itself, becomes of an intense blue with salts of 
the peroxide of iron, particularly with the perchloride. When cryptopia is 
submitted to the same reaction, it shows no change. 
* The rationale of the production of the green colour is easily comprehended. Sulphuric 
acid producing a blue and nitric acid an orange-yellow; when the two reactions are apphed 
consecutively to one and the same quantity of cryptopia, the compound result is the produc¬ 
tion of a. green colour; and as the action ot nitric acid is more powerful than that of sulphuric 
acid, if the quantity of nitre added should be more than sufficient, the yellow would so pre¬ 
dominate as to overwhelm the blue reaction of the sulphuric acid; in this case, however, we 
have never failed in bringing out the green by the addition of a minute quantity of cryptopia 
to the yellow liquid. The green is of a deep grass shade, and has a remarkable resemblance 
to that which is observed on heating meconine with slightly diluted sulphuric acid, and which 
is so .highly characteristic of that substance. 
t After the colouring action of vitriol on cryptopia has been exhausted, it will be found by 
calculation to have been reallv enormous. 
