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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
from the other. It is also remarked that its solution in water 
is less acid, and the extract more abundant and richer in 
morphine than that of the Alexandria opium, the latter com- 
bining more readily with the sulphuric than the meconic 
acid. The resinous matter of this opium has likewise more 
tenacity. 
Smyrna Opium. — This opium is superior to the other 
two kinds. It is rarely found in commerce in France, 
and like the opium of Constantinople appears under two 
forms. 
1st. In flat pieces — tolerably large, very dry, wrapped in 
large leaves, — fracture smooth, internally of a deep brown 
color, bordering on red. The seeds of the dock are met with 
in it. Taste bitter, acrid, and persistent: odor narcotic and 
well denned. 
2d. In quite large pieces — rolled in balls more or less 
compressed and irregular. It is covered over, as if rolled in 
the seeds of the Rumex; it is soft and may be easily torn; 
its color is pale red or brown, but darkens promptly by con- 
tact with the air. It is translucent when drawn out into stripes, 
and generally contains seeds of the Rumex in its interior. 
At times a piquant odor is met with in this opium, evincing 
a kind of fermentation; again, a yellowish mould is sometimes 
found in its interior. Of the three kinds, Smyrna opium is 
the most rich in active principles. The morphine obtained 
from it is more readily made white, and crystallizes better. 
The extract retains a more penetrating narcotic odor than the 
opium of Constantinople and Egypt: it is also of a deeper 
color, which seems to be owing to the presence of acid me- 
conates which abound in it largely, and which, during the 
evaporation of the extract, at a lower temperature than that 
of boiling water, are susceptible like meconic acid itself, of 
partially undergoing a change in taking a deep brown color. 
As it is from the Smyrna opium that I have at once obtained 
more morphine and more meconic acid, with which acid the 
