312 POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§ 37I. 
§371. Separation of Morphine from Animal Tissues and Fluids.— 
Formerly a large proportion of the opium and morphine cases submitted 
to chemical experts led to no results ; but owing to the improved processes 
now adopted, failure, though still common, is less frequent. The con¬ 
stituents of opium taken into the blood undergo partial destruction in 
the animal body, but a portion may be found in the secretions, more 
especially in the urine and faeces. First Bouchardat 1 and then Lefort 2 
ascertained the excretion of morphine by the urine after medicinal 
doses ; Dragendorff and Kauzmann showed that the appearance of 
morphine in the urine was constant, and that it could be easily ascer¬ 
tained and separated from the urine of men and animals ; and Levinstein 3 
has also shown that the elimination from a single dose may extend over 
five or six days. The method used by Dragendorff to extract morphine 
from either urine or blood is to shake the liquid (acidified with a 
mineral acid) several times with amyl alcohol, which, on removal, 
separates urea and any bile acids. The liquid thus purified is then 
alkalised, and shaken up with amyl alcohol, and this amyl alcohol 
should contain any morphine that was present. The alcoholic solution 
is treated as detailed on p. 258. Considerable variety of results seems 
to be obtained by different experimenters. Landsberg 4 injected 
hypodermically doses of *2 to *4 grm. of morphine hydrochloride into 
dogs, making four experiments in all, but failed to detect morphine in 
the urine. A large dose with 2-4 mgrms. of the salt gave the same 
result. On the other hand, -8 grm. of morphine hydrochloride injected 
direct into the jugular vein was partly excreted by the kidneys, for 
90 c.c. of the urine yielded a small quantity of morphine. Voit, again, 
examined the urine and faeces of a man who had taken morphine for 
years ; he could detect none in the urine, but separated morphine from 
the faeces. 5 Apparently morphine is excreted by the mucous membrane 
of the stomach and intestines, being found there even after hypodermic 
injection; hence the discovery of small quantities of morphine in the 
stomach is no proof that the morphine has been swallowed. Morphine 
may occasionally be recognised in the blood. Dragendorff 6 found it 
in the blood of a cat twenty-five minutes after a subcutaneous dose, and 
he also separated it from the blood of a man who died of morphine 
poisoning in six hours. Haidlen 7 recognised morphine in the blood of a 
suicide who had taken opium extract. 
On-the other hand, in a case where a woman died in six hours from 
1 Bull. Gen. de Therap., Deo. 1861. 2 Journ de Chim., xi. 93, 1861. 
3 Berl. hlin. Wochenschr., 1876, p. 27. 
4 Pfluger's Archiv, xxiii. 413-433; Chem. Sec. Journ , May 1882, p. 543. 
5 Arch. Pharm. [3], vii. 23-26. 
f> Kauzmann, Beitrage fur den gerichilich-chemisehen Nachueis des Morphia u. 
Narcotin , Dissert., Dorpat, 1868; Dragendorff, Pharm. Zeitschr. f. Bussland, 1868, 
Hft. 4. 7 Wiirtbg. Correspondenzbl., xxxiv, 16, 1896. 
