ON THE OPIUM FOUND IN COMMERCE. 
319 
matter contained in the opium, and always in proportion to 
the quantity of water employed. The filtered solution should 
afterwards present the following reactions: 
1st. With the persalts of iron, a distinct wine red color, 
characteristic of meconic acid. 
2d. With hydrochlorate of lime, assisted by ebullition, an 
abundant dirty white preaipitate formed of meconate and sul- 
phate of lime. The liquid, filtered and evaporated to a syrupy 
consistence, should form a mass of crystalline grains, princi- 
pally composed of hydrochlorate of morphine, which may be 
purified by separating it from its mother water, and redissolv- 
ing it in pure water. 
3d. With ammonia dropped into the boiling liquid, preci- 
pitation, especially after cooling, of a very abundant granular 
substance, w r hich is morphine colored, mixed with resin, nar- 
cotine, and a little meconate of lime. This impure morphine 
should be wholly soluble in boiling alcohol, should saturate 
the sulphuric and muriatic acids diluted with w T ater, neu- 
tralize them completely, become colored deep red by contact 
with concentrated nitric acid, and almost totally dissolve in a 
weak solution of caustic potash. 
Now, the substance under investigation will be quite differ- 
ently affected. It separates and mixes promptly with the water ; 
one part of the insoluble matter precipitates in the form of a 
dirty yellow magma, the other remains indefinitely suspended 
in the liquid and gives it an emulsive aspect; its clarification 
cannot by any means be attained. Shaking it with albumen, 
and then boiling it, produces no change: alcohol poured upon 
it, neither separates the gummous nor the amylaceous matter. 
The subacetate of lead occasions neither a precipitate of color- 
ing or resinous matter. Lastly, in mixing it with animal 
black, and trying to filter it through paper, you succeed, only 
after a long time and with some trouble, in procuring a few 
ounces of liquid, which, however, always remains turbid, and 
offers but in a slightly sensible manner some of the reactions 
of genuine opium. 
