156 
ON HYDROCHLORATE OF MORPHIA. 
with animal charcoal, and crystallizing the solution in conjunc- 
tion with the washings of the charcoal, in this part of the 
process much loss is sustained. From the results of repeated 
experiments, I have no hesitation in asserting, that it is no 
less than one-twelfth of the quantity which might be antici- 
pated. 
The Edinburgh college orders the concentrated solution of 
opium to be decomposed by a solution of chloride of calcium, 
in four parts of water, the quantity of the chloride to that of 
opium being in the proportion of one to twenty. By this 
operation an insoluble meconate of lime and a soluble hydro- 
chlorate of morphia are formed, and are readily separated; 
and, every thing soluble being washed out of the meconate, 
the liquid is evaporated in a water-bath, sufficiently for it to 
solidify on cooling. The next step is to press the cooled mass 
in a cloth ; then to re-dissolve it in warm distilled water ; and, 
after adding a little fine powder of white marble, to filter : 
this filtered fluid is acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and a 
second time concentrated to crystallization. The crystals af- 
ter being a second time strongly pressed, and again submitted 
to the process of solution, clarification, by marble and hydro- 
chloric acid, the concentration and crystallization are to be 
repeated until a snow white mass is obtained. 
The loss in this process is greater than the former, for 
the hydrochlorate remaining in the fluid expressed from the 
first crop of crystals, is directed to be obtained by allowing it 
to remain at rest for a few months, when the hydrochlorate 
will be deposited in impure crystals, which must of course un- 
dergo the same purification as those procured in the first stage 
of the process. 
Besides these objections, the modes of procuring the solu- 
tion of opium, in both the London and the Edinburgh formu- 
lae, is inadequate to exhaust completely the opium ; and this 
constitutes another source of loss in these processes. 
In the process which I am now to lay before the Society, 
these objection are endeavored to be obviated ; and, if I am 
