SERTÜRNER, FRIEDRICH. - THE ISOLATION OF MORPHINE AND COINING THE WORD 'MORPHINE'.

Analyse de l'Opium. De la Morphine et de l'Acide méconique, considérés comme parties essentielles de l'Opium.

Paris, Crochard, 1817. No wrappers. Extract from "Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago.", tome 5, Cahier 1. With titlepage and htitle to vol. 5. Pp. 21-42.

First French edition (the German paper issued simutaneously in Gilbert's Annalen) of this groundbreaking paper claiming to be the first to announce the isolation of pure morphine from opium. This process marks an importent step in the beginnings of alkaloid chemistry, and the isolation of morphine is the first isolation of an alkali of vegetable origin. In his paper Sertuerner coined the word "morphine" after Morpheus (the Greek God of sleep).

The isolation of morphine from opium, the first isolation of a natural product, was a seminal event in the development of pharmacology as an independent discipline. The purification kick-started natural product chemistry and quickly led to the isolation of a host of other alkaloids. Within a few years, in 1827, Heinrich Emanuel Merck of Darmstadt began selling morphine, resulting in the development of the eponymous company.

Sertürner reported his first observations on Opium in 1805, which was mainly concerned with the constituent of meconic acid, but "it was only in 1817...(in the paper offered) that he unequivocally reported the isolation of pure morphine. He prepared it by extracting opium with hot water and precipitating morphine with ammonia. he obtained colorless crystals, poorly soluble in water, but soluble in acids and alcohol. In order to establish that his crystals carried the pharmacological activity of raw opium, Sertuerner tested them on himself and three boys, "none older than seventeen.". It was a near-catastrophe." (Ryan J. Huxtable a. K.W. Schwarz).

DEROSNE (1803) made claim of priority in the discovery of opium, but he only "prepared a crude extract of opium with alcohol and water, and obtained by potassium carbonate preciipitation, what he called "sel de Derosne". Derosne's alkaloidal fraction lacked narcotic properties, and was probably largely narcotine (also known as noscapine), perhaps with meconic acid, both abundant in opium." (Huxtable & Schwarz).

Parkinson "Breakthroughs", 1817 C,

The offered issue contains another importent paper by Alexander v. Humboldt: "Sur les Lignes isothermes. (Extrait)", pp. 102-111 and a large folded engraved plate. Here Humboldt introduced "Isothermes" in meteorology. This extract issued at the same time as the larger memoir which appeared in "Mémoires de physique et de chimie de la Société d’Arcueil" (1817).

Order-nr.: 49073