8io 
Ejjects  oj  Opium. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(    November,  1920. 
Let  US  deal  with  the  professor  in  a  broad  and  sympathetic  way. 
He  is  the  all-important  factor  in  our  educational  scheme  which  we 
have  so  laboriously  builded.  With  him  rests  largely  the  future  of 
pharmacy,  for  it  is  he  who  deals  with  the  on-coming  generation  of 
pharmacists.  Let  us  standardize  the  professor  by  all  means;  but 
let  us  do  it  wisely. 
THE  EFFECTS  OF  PROLONGED  HEATING  AND  OF 
AQUEOUS  EXTRACTION  ON  OPIUM. 
By  Alex.  M.  Macmillan  and  Alfred  Tingle, 
ottawa,  ont.,  canada. 
INTRODUCTION, 
The  work  of  H.  A.  Annett  and  Hardayal  Singh ^  on  the  change 
of  morphine  content  produced  by  heating  opium  was  of  such  interest 
to  the  Customs  and  Inland  Revenue  Laboratory  at  Ottawa  that 
it  was  found  desirable  to  check  the  results  and  endeavor  to  confirm 
them.  We  also  wished  to  extend  the  scope  of  the  observations 
recorded  and  we  believed  that  we  could  improve  on  some  points 
of  procedure,  eliminating  or  minimizing  certain  possible  sources  of 
error. 
Our  conclusions  differ  from  those  of  these  previous  authors. 
We  cannot  consider  that  the  variations  in  experimental  conditions 
are  wholly  responsible  for  the  different  results  obtained.  We  should 
have  preferred  to  carry  our  work  much  further,  so  that  it  might  be 
final  rather  than  tentative.  Both  of  us  having  left  the  laboratory 
where  we  undertook  this  investigation,  and  neither  of  us  being  in 
a  position  to  continue  it  alone,  we  have  decided  that  it  is  best  to 
publish  these  results  as  they  stand,  leaving  the  last  word  on  the 
subject  to  some  other  worker. 
H.  A.  Annett  and  Hardayal  vSingh  used  the  B.  P.  method  for 
their  estimations  of  morphine.  While  as  good  as  any  method  then 
available,  it  is  open  to  three  objections:  (i)  The  results  admittedly 
may  vary  as  much  as  0.5  per  cent,  in  either  direction.  (2)  Its  adoption 
made  it  necessary  to  add  enough  water  to  the  heated  material  to 
bring  it  back  to  its  original  weight.    Justification  for  such  action 
^  Jour.  Soc.  Chem.  Ind.,  37:  315T,  1918. 
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