Am Aprif; Si™"}         The  Opium  Assay  Question.  163 
Fliickiger's  method  and  at  the  same  time  the  filters  and  crystals 
upon  them  were  beyond  any  question  of  a  doubt  the  purest  and 
whitest.    Here'follow  the  figures  : 
Merck  Opium.  Gehe  Opium, 
•  Fliickiger,   9-52  p.c.  13-95  p.c. 
Squibb,  u-67p.c.  16-52  p.c. 
U.  S.  P.,  ii'44p.c.  15*00  p.c. 
As  these  figures  show,  Fliickiger's  method  gave  the  lowest  and 
Squibb's  the  highest  results,  which  facts  are,  however,  very  easily 
explained  and  as  follows :  in  Fliickiger's  method  the  result  depends 
very  much,  if  not  entirely,  upon  the  amount  of  shaking  that  is  done, 
as  Dieterich  has  conclusively  shown,  and  as  I  only  shook  for  about 
half  an  hour  steadily,  with  continued  shaking  at  intervals  of  ten 
minutes  for  two  hours  more,  it  is  very  probable  that  all  of  the  mor- 
phine did  not  separate  out.  The  high  figures  obtained  by  Squibb's 
method  are  undoubtedly  to  be  explained  by  the  impurity  of  the 
resulting  products,  which  fact  could  readily  be  detected  by  the 
naked  eye,  as  they  were  invariably  very  dark  colored  Despite  all 
the  washing  that  they  were  subjected  to,  they  never  once  were  even 
approximately  near  being  colorless  and  besides  invariably  dissolved 
in  lime  water  only  in  part  and  gave  as  a  result  a  very  dark  colored 
solution.  It  was  found  that  continued  washing  would  not  remove 
the  impurities,  for  long  before  the  crystals  and  filter  paper  showed 
any  signs  of  becoming  decolorized,  the  wash  water  ran  through 
absolutely  pure  and  colorless.  In  both  cases  the  morphine  obtained 
by  the  U.  S.  P.  method  dissolved  completely  in  lime  water  and  gave 
a  pure,  limpid,  clear  solution,  while  that  obtained  by  Fliickiger's 
method,  although  it  gave  a  colorless  solution  in  lime  water,  yet  left 
a  small  residue  amounting  to  several  milligrams  and  consisting  of 
narcotine,  as  did  the  residue  obtained  in  Squibb's  method.  This 
would  indicate  that  in  the  presence  of  alcohol  and  water,  the  ether 
does  not  completely  diss®lve  all  of  the  narcotine. 
MOKPHINE  PICRATE. 
Inasmuch  as  this  salt  of  morphine  had  not  yet  been  described,, 
and  the  similar  salt  of  strychnine  is  practically  insoluble  in  water 
and  hence  enable  us  to  determine  the  alkaloid  as  strychnine  picrate, 
it  was  made  by  treating  a  solution  of  morphine  hydrochlorate  with 
a  slight  excess  of  picric  acid,  in  the  hope  that  it,  too,  might  prove 
to  be  insoluble  and  thus  facilitate  somewhat  the  method  of  deter- 
