ON THE OPIUM FOUND IN COMMERCE. 
315 
is difficult to purify: again, with the extract it furnishes, 
it is always difficult to get entirely rid of the resinous matter 
accompanying it. 
If some of this opium in a state of division he macerated in 
water by shaking and malaxation, the resino-extractive matter 
separates easy enough, precipitating in a granular form. The 
supernatant liquid is but slightly colored, compared with the 
quantity of opium employed. 
It developes a strong odor of acetic acid when reduced by 
evaporation to a syrupy consistence, and this when diffused 
through water gives rise to a new and very abundant deposit 
of resinoid matter, mixed with narcotine and a little morphine. 
Nevertheless, much of this matter remains in the filtered li- 
quids separated from the deposit, for when in a state of ebul- 
lition, the additon of ammonia to isolate the morphine, 
precipitates it much colored. It is whitened with difficulty, 
after several crystallizations in alcohol; and even with the em- 
ployment of animal black it mostly remains reddish and 
mossy. In this the morphine is less in quantity than in the 
two other kinds, and mixed with more narcotine, which 
arises from the presence of acetic acid in the aqueous extract. 
Opium of Constantinople. — This opium should be pre- 
ferred to the preceding. It appears under two forms: it is 
most commonly in flat pieces, wrapped in large leaves, the 
nerves of which seem to divide them; often quite soft; it is 
very rarely dry and brittle, but in this last condition, when 
broken under the hammer, it flattens, and does not fly off in 
splinters like the Egyptian, which no doubt comes from its 
containing more extractive and less resinous or fragile matter. 
This opium kept in the hand, and kneaded between the fingers, 
softens, and may be stretched into thin plates, which placed 
between the eye and the light are translucent. The recently 
softened paste is light colored, resembling pulp of apricots: 
exposed to the air it soon becomes brown. Lastly, its odor 
is stronger than that of Alexandria opium; and even when 
dry and brittle, this alone will be sufficient to distinguish it 
