An inaugural dissertation on opium embracing its history, chemical analysis and use and abuse as a medicine / / by William G. Smith.

  • Smith, William G., active 1832.
Date:
April 2, 1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation on opium embracing its history, chemical analysis and use and abuse as a medicine / / by William G. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    heavy, strong odour, and a bitter, nauseous taste, attended with some acrimony when long chewed. Its colour when good is a reddish brown, or fawn-like. Its texture is com- pact and uniform ; specific gravity 1.336. When mode- rately warm, Opium is soft and compressible, but by age, and. exposure to the air, it becomes brittle, and capable of being reduced to a yellowish-brown powder, which is again aggregated by a heat as low as that of the hand. Opium is inflammable, takes fire easily, and burns with a bright flame. It is partially soluble in water, alcohol, ether, and the acids. By long boiling in water under ex- posure to the air, its narcotic qualities are impaired; yet distillation does not separate its active ingredients. * Spirit rather below proof, is its best menstruum. The watery solution when filtered is transparent, and reddens the colour of Litmus; it undergoes no change on the ad- dition of alcohol. When Opium is triturated with hot water, five parts in twelve are dissolved, six suspended, and one part remains perfectly insoluble, and resembles gluten. Opium is precipitated from its solutions by the follow-* ng articles, viz :— Ammonia, pure. Carbonates of the fixed Alkalies, Sol. of Muriate, and Nitrate of Mercury, Nitrate of Silver, Sub. Acetate, and Acetate of Lead, The Sulphates of Copper, Zinc, and Iron, And an Infusion of Galls. EAST INDIAN OPIUM. Qualities.—This species in its medicinal effects, is weaker han that of the Turkey Opium. It comes from India, n round masses, covered with the petals of the poppy in uccessive layers to the thickness, often, nearly of one burth of an inch. It has a strong empyreumatic smell, >ut not much of the peculiar, narcotic, heavy odour of the rurkey opium. Its taste is more bitter and nauseous, but t has less acrimony. Its sensible qualities resemble those * Beaume, however, asserts that the odorous part of the Opium is an oil.