From: pjordan@cab020.cs.ualberta.ca (Peter Jordan) Newsgroups: rec.drugs.misc,alt.drugs.chemistry,sci.chem Subject: Morphine... extraction circa 1907 ! Date: 15 Sep 1995 01:41:56 GMT BEGIN QUOTE MORPHINE or MORPHIA C17H19NO3 [ maybe not correct ] Solubility stuff Occurs in opium, being known in an impure state as _Magisterium opii_ in the seventeenth century, and was first isolated in 1816 by Serturner (Gilb. Ann. 55, 61 ; 57, 192 ; 59, 50). Dott (Pr. E. 12, 189) found in a sample of opium that half the morphine was present as meconate and half as sulphate. It also occurs in _Eschscholtzia californica_ (Baudet a. Adrian, C.C. 1889, 197), and in hops. [ Hmmm, I wonder about that .. this is OLD stuff. ] Preperation.--1. Opium is macerated with water at 38 degrees, the extract evaporated with CaCO3 to a small bulk, and then mixed with CaCl2. The liquid is filtered from ppd. calcium meconate, and evaporated. It first deposits calcium meconate, and afterwards a mixture of the hydrochlorides of morphine and codeine. These crystals are dissolved in water and treated with ammonia, which ppts. morphine, leaving codeine in solution (Robiquet a. Gregory, A. 5, 87 ; 7, 261).--2. The aqueous extract of opium is boiled with lime, and the filtrate boiled with NH4Cl, which ppts. morphine (Mohr, A. 35, 120). Pages of neato stuff. APOMORHINE C17H17NO2. Formed by heating .... END QUOTE SOURCE: H. Forster Morley and M. M. Pattison Muir Assisted by Eminent Contributors in four volumes .. Vol. III _Watts' Dictionary of Chemistry_ (revised and entirely rewritten (in 1888) Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York and Bombay 1906 Peter Jordan (I just happened to see it on the shelf on my way out of the lib.) -- http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~pjordan/