312 DISCOVERY OF A NEW ORGANIC BASE IN OPIUM. 
supernatant aqueous liquid, which continue to increase for 
a long time until the entire mass of the oily liquid is con- 
verted into a tissue of well-defined crystals several lines in 
length. A gentle heat facilitates the crystallization. The 
oily liquid dissolves on boiling, and again separates for the 
greater part on cooling. When some crystals, freed by 
washing with water from adherent acid, are dissolved in 
water, the solution remains transparent on cooling, and only 
after several days' standing do large crystals separate ; when, 
on the contrary, a little muriatic acid is added to the cold 
solution, the salt separates in the above-described form. 
The crystals of the muriate are very sparingly soluble in 
cold water ; the solution has no action upon litmus-paper. 
The muriate of papaverine crystallizes in right rhombic 
prisms. 
Sulphuric and nitric acids behave towards the base like 
muriatic acid, only the crystals could not be obtained of such 
large size. 
With chloride of platinum the muriate of papaverine 
yields a yellow precipitate, which is insoluble in boiling 
water and in boiling alcohol, and which I could not obtain 
crystallized. The analysis of the base, of the muriate, and 
of the platinum salt led to the following formulae: 
Papaverine . . C^^ H^^ N0«- 
Muriate . . C^^ H^^ N0« CIH. 
Platinum salt . . C^o m N0« CIH, PtCP- 
This new body is consequently distinct from the bases 
hitherto discovered in opium; and it is well characterized by 
its salts and their dissimilar oily and crystalline nature, 
which do not allow of its being mistaken for narcotine, to 
which the /??/re base has otherwise some resemblance. — 
Chem. Gaz.y from Liebig^s Annalen. 
