The National Academy of Sciences’ Committees on the Morphine Content of Opium, 1886 & 1887

[The following narrative is taken from Frederick W. True’s Semi-centennial history of the National Academy of Sciences, A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863-1913, pp. 309-311.]

It seems rather singular that the Treasury Department should have thought it fitting to send samples of opium to the Academy for the simple purpose of ascertaining what percentage of morphine they contained. Nevertheless, this was done on two occasions; first in 1886 and again in 1887. The Acting Secretary, C.S. Fairchild, seems to have given a literal interpretation to the section of the charter of the Academy which provides that it shall examine or investigate any subject of science or art when called upon by the Government to do so.

The opium in question was part of two lots seized on account of having been smuggled into the country. The first request for an analysis was received from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury under date of April 7, 1886. The President of the Academy, Professor Marsh, appointed a committee, consisting of Ira Remsen and George F. Barker who reported on June 14, 1886. As various methods had been employed for determining the percentage of morphine in opium, the committee at first proposed to ascertain which of them was calculated to give the most accurate results, but having learned that the Treasury Department would be satisfied with a less thorough investigation, it confined itself to a single method.

By employing Flueckiger’s process, as modified by Squibb, it was determined that the percentage of morphine in the syrupy liquid opium was 19.53, and in the same when reduced to a dry powder, 25.28 per cent.[Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1886, p. 40]

A year later, in 1887, a second request was received from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury for the same information regarding another sample of smuggled opium. The President seems not to have been entirely satisfied to have the Academy called upon to answer these comparatively unimportant inquiries. Notwithstanding, he requested the same two chemists to serve a second time, and appointed Professor Charles F. Chandler as the third member of the committee. In a letter addressed to the chairman of the committee, however, under date of May 4, 1887, he remarked: “The province of the Academy is not to conduct a technical examination merely, but especially to bring out the scientific principles involved in the investigation, and in this spirit I wish the work to be undertaken.”[Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1887, p. 32]

Having in view this injunction of the President, the committee returned to its original plan of first testing the various methods of analysis to ascertain which of them gave the most uniform results, and then applying this particular method to the problem at issue. Accordingly, the committee engaged the services of Mr. I.H. Kastle of Johns Hopkins University to make the necessary experiments. Five methods were investigated, namely, that of the United States Pharmacopoeia, Flueckiger’s method, the same as modified by Squibb, Stillwell’s modification of the Flueckiger-Squibb method, and the so-called “Helfenberg Method” devised by Dietrich. Each of these methods is described in the report of the committee, and afterwards the results obtained from two or more analyses of the sample of opium received from the Treasury Department by the use of each method. The conclusion reached was that the Pharmacopoeia method was far from accurate, while Stillwell’s method was in every way the most satisfactory. A modification of the latter was devised which shortened the time required for making the estimations. The opium, which was a thick, black, semi-liquid mass was found to contain an average amount of 12.16 per cent of morphine. The report was submitted on August 16, 1887, and was transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury two days later.