Morphine, or MORPHIA, , was the first alkaloid isolated in a pure state (by Sertürner, an apothecary, in Hanover in 1816). The name morphia was given to it in allusion to its crystalline form (Gr. morphē, 'form'). It is the most important of the alkaloids existing in opium, of which it usually constitutes from th to th by weight, and in which it is combined with meconic, sulphuric, and probably other acids. It is obtained as white, silky, translucent crystals, with a bitter taste and alkaline reaction. Morphine is soluble in about 1000 parts of cold and in 400 of boiling water; boiling alcohol dissolves it freely; but it is insoluble in pure ether and chloroform. Morphine is not so easily detected in cases of poisoning by opium as Meconic Acid (q.v.). The following are some of the ordinary tests for it: concentrated nitric acid added to morphine or any of its salts gives an orange colour; when it is mixed with iodic acid iodine is liberated; in solution it gives a blue colour with persalts of iron.
Morphine is the only opium alkaloid which is soluble in lime-water, and this property affords one of the best means of extracting it. A watery infusion of opium is boiled with milk of lime, filtered, mixed with powdered sal-ammoniac, and again boiled. By this means the lime is converted into the chloride of calcium, the ammonia is volatilised by the heat, while the morphine is precipitated in an impure form, which admits of easy purification.
Morphine combines with acids to form crystallisable salts, which are readily soluble in water and in alcohol. Of these, the hydrochlorate (muriate), the acetate, the bimeconate, and other salts are much used in medicine. Apomorphia, a white crystalline powder with physiological properties like those of morphia, is obtained by heating morphia with an excess of hydrochloric acid.
The therapeutic uses of morphine and its salts are very similar to those of Opium (q.v.), but morphine is employed largely in cases where Hypodermic Injection (q.v.) is desired. The ordinary dose of morphine, or its salts, when given to an adult to allay pain or induce sleep, ranges from an eighth of a grain to half a grain. Many persons are addicted to the habitual use of morphine. The effects are very much the same as those of opium, and it is taken for the same reasons; but morphine is more rapid in action and more efficacious, and is not accompanied by some inconveniences which attend the use of opium. The habitual abuse has its origin in the legitimate use as a medicinal agent. But when the habit is established, the evil consequences soon set in, though some constitutions suffer much more than others. As a rule, habitues become pale, sallow, emaciated, appetite is diminished, digestion disordered, sleeplessness sets in, and defies extra doses of the drug. If, as is usual, the morphine is subcutaneously injected, all parts of the body within reach of the syringe may become one mass of sores, so that it is hard to find a place for a new injection. The will is enfeebled; the man or woman becomes a mere paralytic. A special hospital has been equipped in Paris for victims of this self-indulgence. See Sharpey on 'Morphinomania' in the Nineteenth Century (1887).