506  Assay  of  Opium  for  Morphia  {^J™J£jg!mm 
The  process  given  by  Professor  Fliickiger  in  the  "  Pharmacogra- 
phia "  is  better,  but  far  from  perfect.  It  is  as  follows :  Opium  is 
exhausted  by  boiling  ether,  the  residue  dried,  treated  with  water,  and 
precipitated  by  ammonia.  This  precipitate  recrystallized  from  boiling 
alcohol. 
Professor  Fliickiger  himself  describes  the  process  as  imperfect,  and 
gives  his  reasons.  He  is  one  of  the  very  few  who  seem  to  have  taken 
notice  of  the  loss  of  morphia  by  virtue  of  its  solubility  and  of  its 
destruction  by  heat.    The  chief  objections  to  the  process  are  : 
1.  The  long  continued  boiling  with  ether  (twenty  or  thirty  times 
repeated  with  fresh  quantities)  takes  away  some  of  the  morphia,  and 
care  must  be  taken  that  the  ether  employed  is  free  from  alcohol  and 
water. 
2.  The  loss  of  morphia  by  virtue  of  its  solubility. 
3.  In  crystallizing  from  alcohol  much  morphia  remains  in  solution, 
but  the  crystals  deposited  are  very  pure. 
The  small  proportions  of  morphia  found  by  Professor  Fliickiger 
tend  to  prove  the  correctness  of  these  statements. 
Guibourt's  process  ("Journal  de  Pharmacie  et  Chimie")  consists  in 
exhausting  opium  with  water,  precipitating  by  ammonia,  and  washing 
the  precipitate  first  with  dilute  alcohol  to  remove  narcotina  and  color- 
ing matter,  and  afterwards  dissolving  the  morphia  by  means  of  strong 
alcohol.    The  alcoholic  solution  is  evaporated,  dried  and  weighed. 
The  objections  to  this  process  are  loss  of  morphia  by  washing  the 
precipitate  with  dilute  alcohol,  and  in  the  precipitation  with  ammonia. 
The  residue  obtained  by  the  evaporation  of  the  alcoholic  solution  is 
not  pure  morphia,  but  contains  narcotina  and  resin. 
Schacht's  process  ("Archiv  der  Pharmacie,"  1863).  The  process 
is  an  improvement  on  the  last  mentioned.  It  consists  in  exhausting 
opium  with  water  by  two  or  three  macerations,  treating  with  animal 
charcoal,  concentrating,  and  adding  ammonia.  The  precipitate  is 
weighed,  treated  with  ether,  and  the  etherial  solution  evaporated  and 
weighed.  The  portion  insoluble  in  ether  is  treated  with  strong  alco- 
hol, the  alcoholic  solution  evaporated,  dried  and  weighed  ;  or  it  is 
washed  with  water  and  dilute  alcohol  and  again  weighed,  the  weight 
being  taken  as  pure  morphia. 
This  process  has  the  following  objections  : 
I.  The  amount  of  water  used  by  macerating  three  successive  times 
