Fayk Bey[266] analysed 92 samples of opium of Asia Minor, and found that half the number yielded more than 10 per cent. of morphine. The richest afforded 17·2 per cent.
From the foregoing statements we are warranted in assuming that good Smyrna opium deprived of water ought to afford 12 to 15 per cent. of morphine, and that if the percentage is less than 10, adulteration may be suspected.
Egyptian opium has usually been found very much weaker in morphine than that of Asia Minor. A sample sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1865 and presented to one of us by Figari Bey of Cairo, afforded us 5·8 per cent. of morphine and 8·7 of narcotine.
Persian opium appears extremely variable, probably in consequence of the practice of combining it with sugar and other substances. It is however sometimes very good. Séput[267] obtained from four samples the respective percentages of 13·47, 11·52, 10·12, 10·08 of morphine, the opium being free from water. Mr. Howard as already stated ([p. 49]) extracted from Persian opium, not previously dried, from 8 to 10·75 per cent. of morphine.
East Indian opium is remarkable for its low percentage of morphine, a circumstance which we think is attributable in part to climate and in part to a method of collection radically defective. It is scarcely conceivable that the long period during which the juice remains in a wet state,—always three to four weeks,—does not exercise a destructive action on its constituents.
According to Eatwell[268] the percentage of morphine in the samples of Benares opium officially submitted for analysis gave the following averages.—
| 1845-46 | 1846-47 | 1847-48 | 1848-49 |
| 2·48 | 2·38 | 2·20 | 3·21 |
The same observer has recorded the results of the examination of freshly collected poppy-juice, which in three instances afforded respectively 1·4, 3·06, and 2·89 per cent. of morphine, reckoned on the material deprived of water; but the conditions under which the experiments were made appear open to great objection.[269]
Such very low results are not always obtained from East Indian opium. In a sample from Khandesh furnished by the Indian Museum, we found 6·07 of morphine. Solly from the same kind obtained about 7 per cent.
Patna Garden Opium which is the sort prepared exclusively for medicinal use, afforded us 8·6 per cent. of purified morphine and 4 per cent. of narcotine.[270] Guibourt obtained from such an opium 7·72 per cent. Christison from a sample sent to Duncan of Edinburgh in 1830,[271] 9·50 per cent. of hydrochlorate of morphine.