&m.  Jour.  Pharm.'l 
September,  1894.  J 
The  Opium  Assay  Method. 
43  i 
balance  the  quantity  of  morphine  lost  to  the  assay  by  remaining 
dissolved  in  the  mother-liquor  and  washings.  In  Vol.  Ill,  No.  2, 
page  965,  of  the  "  Ephemeris  "  (published  in  October,  1887)  is  founcl 
the  following  paragraph :  "  The  process  has  been  criticised  as  yield- 
ing results  that  were  too  high.  This  criticism  can  only  be  justified 
by  weighing  substances  as  morphine  which  are  not  morphine,  and  it 
is  feared  that  this  may  have  been  done  through  a  fault  in  the  origi- 
nal paper  in  regard  to  the  lime-water  testing  of  the  results,  in  order 
to  correct  them  by  the  subtraction  of  matters  insoluble  in  lime- 
water.  This  is  given  in  the  paper,  without  particular  emphasis,  and 
merely  as  a  test  for  the  presence  or  absence  of  narcotine,  when, 
though  narcotine  can  hardly  ever  be  present,  other  matters  equally 
insoluble  with  narcotine  are  very  often  thrown  down  with  the 
morphine  and  must  be  filtered  out,  weighed  and  subtracted  for  a 
proper  correction  of  the  results." 
In  1886,  Dieterich  published  the  results  of  experiments,  proving 
that  the  presence  of  alcohol  in  the  liquor  (made  1:10  at  that  time) 
from  which  morphine  is  precipitated,  caused  also  the  precipitation 
of  calcium  meconate,  which  was  estimated  by  igniting  the  mor- 
phine and  calculating  from  the  ash  which  was  stated  to  be  pure 
calcium  carbonate ;  the  results  were  expressed  in  the  statement : 
"  The  separation  of  the  morphine  proceeds  slowly,  and  with  the 
least  quantity  of  lime  salts  if  allowed  to  stand  quietly  ;  proportionate 
to  the  amount  of  agitation  the  separation  of  the  morphine  proceeds 
more  quickly,  is  more  abundant  and  contains  more  lime  salt." 
The  addition  of  alcohol  is  objected  to  by  Dieterich  as  of  vital 
importance,  since  morphine  is  soluble  in  alcohol,  therefore  the  alco- 
holic mother-liquor  will  always  retain  more  morphine  than  an  aque- 
ous mother-liquor.  Professor  Fluckiger,  in  one  of  his  articles  on 
opium  assaying,  admits  that  the  amount  of  morphine  lost  to  the 
assay  depends  especially  upon  the  quantity  of  alcohol  present;  the 
smaller  the  quantity,  the  smaller  the  loss ;  the  greater  the  quantity 
the  purer  the  precipitated  morphine.  To  one  of  these  objections 
relating  to  the  presence  of  alcohol  the  view  of  Dr.  Squibb  has  been 
given ;  the  other  relating  to  the  precipitation  of  calcium  salts  in  the 
presence  of  alcohol  is  admitted  as  having  been  "  experimentally 
demonstrated  to  be  sound."    Dr.  Squibb  then  continues: 
"But  then  he  (Dieterich)  precipitated  from  so  large  a  volume  of 
liquid  as  to  vitiate  his  conclusions  if  applied  to  small  volumes' of 
