ON A SUBSTIUTE FOR m'mUNN's ELIXIR OF OPIUM. 213 
Macerate the opium in half a pint of water for two days an d express ; 
subject the dregs to two successive macerations, using six fluid ounces of 
water each time, with expression, mix and strain the liquors, evaporate them 
to two fluid ounces, and agitate the liquid with the ether several times during 
half an hour. Then separate the ether by means of a funnel, evaporate the 
solution of opium to dryness, dissolve the extract in half a pint of cold 
water, pour the solution on a filter, and after it has passed wash the filter 
with sufficient water to make the filtrate measure 12 fluid ounces, to which 
add the alcohol and mix. 
The same result was arrived at by first digesting the powdered opium in 
ether at several macerations, until it was exhausted, then drying and ex- 
hausting it with water. The aqueous solution was evaporated to dryness 
and then re-dissolved, filtered, etc., as in the above. 
The ethereal liquid was evaporated in each instance : — that obtained di- 
rectly from the opium yielded a brown crystalline extract, weighing 22 
grains ; whilst that resulting from washing the solution of opium, afforded 
acicular crystals and groups of larger crystals in stellated form, with a 
little brown extract-like matter around the edges, amounting to two grains, 
and having but little odor, and which exists in the elixir of Mr. Dupuy. 
These crystals are not reddened in the slightest degree by nitric acid, which 
dissolves them with a yellow color. In this treatment, the ether removes all 
that the water has dissolved of the thebaina, the meconin, a part at least of the 
codeia, the odorous principle, meconate of narcotine, and fatty matter. The 
ethereal extract obtained directly from the opium, contains nearly the whole 
of the odorous matter and fatty matter, besides the narcotine, free and com- 
bined. The evaporation to dryness, and re-solution in water, removes the 
ethereal odor, and separates a portion of acid resin and extractive. Landerer, 
in another part of this number, speaks of the nauseating and other un- 
pleasant effects of the exhalations from poppy plantations during the col- 
lection of the opium. May not the odorous principle of opium have 
something to do with this effect, and may not the removal or loss of this 
in the so-called denarcotized laudanum, and in old opium pills, be at least 
partially the reason of their diminished tendency to produce nausea and 
head-ache? Mr. Redwood considers the "sedative liquor of Battley," to 
be an aqueous solution of opium evaporated to dryness to get rid of the 
acid resin, re-dissolved in water, and a small portion of spirit added to give 
it permanence.] 
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