96 
ON A NEW VARIETY OF OPIUM. 
weight : this, after pulverization, was boiled in successive 
portions of alcohol, until eight pounds of this fluid had been 
employed, and filtered while boiling hot. The first solu- 
tion became, on cooling, nearly solid ; and even the last, al- 
though colourless, was sensibly turbid. These solutions 
filtered readily when perfectly cold, leaving a bulky gela- 
tinous looking mass, equal in volume to the quantity of 
opium employed, but which by pressure was reduced to a 
small bulk, and when dry was in weight about one ounce, 
and. consisted almost entirely of a substance resembling 
wax, combined with an elastic matter resembling caout- 
chouc. 
The opium, after treatment with alcohol, was then boiled 
in pure sulphuric ether, until all matter soluble in that fluid 
was removed, and the evaporated ether left one ounce of 
the waxy substance in a pure state, which, with the other 
products, is on the table. 
My next object being to ascertain the quantity of mor- 
phia, the filtered alcoholic solutions were distilled, and the 
matters remaining in the water-bath acted on with distilled 
water to separate the resinous matter insoluble in that fluid 
and in the natural acid of the opium. The aqueous solu- 
tion, treated in the usual manner, gave one ounce of slightly 
colored morphia. It also contained other principles com- 
mon to opium. 
The unusually large quantity of wax and caoutchouc con- 
tained in this opium, and the diminished quantity of mor- 
phia, render it quite unfit for general use. A microscopic 
examination of the insoluble part, which, unlike many 
other Turkey opiums, is in a state of minute division, shows 
it to have been largely mixed with the capsule of the poppy ; 
and it is, therefore, probable that this opium is obtained by 
expression, instead of incision ; or at least is very largely 
mixed with the expressed matters so obtained, and the pow- 
dered external coat of the capsule. 
