1804

Morphine

Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner (1783–1841)

Opium, the dried sap of the Oriental poppy, has been known as a medicinal substance since prehistoric times. All the civilizations of Asia and Europe made use of it, and rare is the ancient medical text that fails to mention it. Humanity had reason to be impressed: the morphine present in opium (up to 14 percent by weight) was, far and away, the most effective form of pain relief that had ever been found.

In about 1804, Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner, a pharmacy apprentice, extracted pure morphine from crude opium—a very long and tedious process with the tools of the time. He named the new compound after the Greek god of sleep and dreams, Morpheus, and began experimenting with it, first testing the compound on animals before trying it out on himself and a few local volunteers. From his records, it appears that they took many times the effective dose over a rather short period, which incapacitated the whole team for some time.

This work not only inaugurated the long history of opiate chemistry, but also the even wider history of alkaloids—nitrogen-containing natural products, produced by plants, that cover an extraordinary range of complex chemical structures. They’re also well known for producing physiological effects. Many biochemical pathways have been discovered and elucidated by studying alkaloids and tracking down the proteins that they bind to. In the case of morphine, it binds tightly to what we now call the mu-opioid receptor proteins (among others) in the brain and spine. This suggested that the body produced its own compounds that also bind to these receptors, and after a long search, peptide neurotransmitters (the endorphins and enkephalins) were found to fill this role. Bizarrely, some recent research suggests that morphine itself is produced by many animal species, bringing the story around in a most unexpected loop. Tiny amounts of morphine can be detected in human cell cultures, and it was found that an oxygen radioactive tracer ended up in the morphine molecules, suggesting that the cells were making it themselves.

In this 1811 painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Morpheus, the chief Greek god of dreams, is awakened by Iris, a messenger of still more powerful gods.