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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
Thwarted by the impossibility of obtaining a transparent so- 
lution, and the separation of the resin, which should always take 
place, I reunited the liquids to a little of the resinous sub- 
stance which was deposited, and the whole was evaporated to 
an extract, and triturated while hot with ammonia in order to 
set free the morphine, and render it more soluble in alcohol. 
After several decoctions in this vehicle, I set aside the filtered 
liquids to cool, but instead of having crystals of morphine or 
narcotine, there was presented under the form of greenish 
yellow flakes, a substance altogether foreign to opium; collect- 
ed upon a filter and dried, it was afterwards burned upon 
charcoal, and I saw, then, that it presented the phenomena 
exhibited by fatty matters. 
The alcoholic mother waters were evaporated to dryness, and 
gave a little abundant residue, in which was found more of this 
waxy, fatty matter. Treated when cold by acetic acid to take up 
the morphine, the acid took a very deep color. On diluting 
it with water, a deposit of brown matter took place, but on 
filtering the liquid, and precipitating by ammonia, the preci- 
pitate obtained did not show, by the reactions, any indication 
of the presence of morphine or narcotine, owing no doubt to 
the resinous or foreign substances surrounding them; thus 
I was at first persuaded that this opium did not contain any. 
Nevertheless, fearing myself to be too easily satisfied, and that 
an error should escape me, by the negative results of the process 
I had followed, I took another method, and proved the exist- 
ence of a small quantity of both morphine and narcotine in this 
opium. After having brought the opium to the consistence of a 
soft extract with water aided by heat, I immediately boiled it in 
several successive quantities of alcohol; the filtered liquids 
gave upon cooling some waxy fatty matter which was sepa- 
rated: I then distilled it to separate the alcohol, and obtain an 
extract. This extract was mixed with a sufficiency of water 
to precipitate all that was insoluble: the aqueous solutions 
which were with difficulty filtered, were then boiled down, 
and precipitated, while hot, by ammonia, and it was then I 
could assure myself of the presence of morphine and a little 
