Serturner, Friedrich Wilhelm

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. 

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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