Serturner, Friedrich

In the mid-nineteenth century, it was the custom for doctors to frequently prescribe morphine (first isolated from opium by Friedrich Serturner in 1806) and other opium preparations. Morphine did not have a major impact on medical practice until the invention of the hypodermic needle in 1840. Soldiers illness was recognized after the Civil War when more than 50,000 veterans became dependent on morphine as a result of treatment for combat injuries (Musto 1987). The public also had ready access to opium and purified drugs in grocery stores and pharmacies. Medicinal mixtures and nostrums, usually unlabelled as to contents, often contained opium or morphine. By the end of the century, many physicians had come to recognize that chronic use of morphine was a disorder (morphinism), although others in society... 

Ibid., pp. 549-571. Details on Serturner s discovery of morphine are available in Rudolf Schmitz, Friedrich Wilhelm Sertilrner and the Discovery of Morphine, Pharm. Hist. 27 (1985) 61-74. 

In 1803, a young German pharmacy assistant named Friedrich Serturner isolated a substance from a natural source. If used wisely, the substance would relieve untold suffering but if it was used unwisely, it would cause untold suffering. What was it ... 

Morphine was isolated at roughly the same time byJean-Francois Derosne, Armand Seguin and Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner, but as Sertiirner s work was publicized by Gay-Lussac, he usually gets the credit. People thought that morphine was less addictive than opium and so could replace it. But it was found that morphine was not too effective orally (we now know that it is rapidly metabolized in the liver and intestine). 

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