262 
MISCELLANY. 
cipitating the muriate thus made, by ammonia, and dissolving the precipi- 
tate in boiling- alcohol, from which the narcotine separates in fine crystals 
as the solution cools. The crystallized narcotine placed in a tube and 
subjected to the influence of a stream of muriatic acid gas combines with 
the acid while it retains its original crystalline form. But this process, 
though more elegant, is too expensive and elaborate for general use, and 
the non-crystalline muriate is just as valuable as the more beautiful pro- 
duct now described. 
A seer of Bengal opium yields by this process an average of one ounce 
of muriate of narcotine, and also one ounce of muriate of morphia. Now 
the seer of opium costs four rupees, the spirit costs one rupee, the ammonia 
four anas, labor and fuel four anas, or a total of five rupees, eight anas per 
one ounce of muriate of narcotine, and one ounce of muriate of morphine. 
The latter salt is in general demand, and its issue from the public stores 
only limited by its high price. Hitherto it has been imported in small 
quantities from Europe at the enormous cost of 1/. 10s. the ounce. Were 
the Government to sanction the preparation of muriate of narcotine here 
for the supply of our hospitals, the sale, as surplus stores of a part of the 
morphine obtained from the same opium at the same time, and by the same 
process, would, at half the present English price, give the narcotine at one 
rupee the ounce, one-fourth of what quinine at present costs. 
Calcutta Quarterly Journal. 
Tests for opium, — mode of keeping extracts. — At a meeting of the Medico- 
Botanical Society, April 10, 1839, Mr. Everitt stated, that having lately had 
to conduct experiments for the purpose of deciding whether opium were 
present or not in the stomach of persons on whom a coroner's jury had to 
sit, he had paid some extra attention to the subject. Generally speaking, 
in the search after opium, it was the object of the chemist to eliminate the 
morphia ; but it was difficult to decide whether this was present or not, 
inasmuch as other alkaloids would give the same results when experi- 
mented upon. Chemists had long known that meconic acid, when acted 
upon by a solution of a peroxide salt of iron, was changed to a deep-red 
color. So far, then, it was a test of the presence of opium. This test, 
however, was liable to doubt, inasmuch as sulphocyanic acid, which Tiede- 
mann had proved to exist in the saliva, would be acted upon similarly to 
the meconic acid, on the addition of a solution of a per-saltofiron. Hence, 
at a trial at Glasgow, in which there could be little doubt that opium was 
present in the stomach of a person supposed to have been killed, the coun- 
sel for the defence of the prisoner objected to the testing of the presence of 
meconic acid by the solution of iron, on the above ground, and the objec- 
tion was considered fatal. He (Mr. Everitt) had endeavored of late to 
obtain, by experiment, the means of distinguishing whether the red color 
in question was produced by the presence of meconic acid, or of sulpho- 
