A young German pharmacist pulled the first drug molecule out of a plant
In 1804 Friedrich Sertürner extracted a pure substance from opium and named it morphium, after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, because it sent people to sleep. It is thought to be the first medicinal alkaloid ever isolated from a plant, and a sign that remedies had active chemical ingredients.
Opium is a dark brown resin made by drying the latex of the opium poppy, and morphine is its chief painkilling component. Sertürner's isolation turned a crude, variable plant product into a compound that could be measured and sold. Merck, the German firm, began marketing it in 1827. Its use expanded sharply after the hypodermic syringe was invented in the mid-1850s, which let doctors deliver it straight into the body.
Most of the world's supply still comes from poppy straw. About 523 tons were produced in 2013, yet only around 45 tons went directly to pain relief, mostly in wealthy countries. Roughly 70 percent is converted into other opioids, including hydromorphone, oxymorphone and heroin. The link to heroin is closer than the names suggest: heroin is essentially morphine with chemical modifications, and the body turns it back into morphine before it reaches opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord. In one controlled study, people with a history of opioid addiction could not tell equal injected doses of the two apart.
The drug acts directly on the central nervous system, changing both the sensation of pain and the emotional response to it. Its effects reach well beyond the brain. Opioid receptors in the bowel wall slow the muscular waves that push food along, which is why constipation is such a familiar side effect. Long-term use can also suppress sex hormones, and several studies suggest a majority of chronic users develop this imbalance.
That combination of power and risk explains its legal status. Morphine is highly addictive, and tolerance builds with repeated use; researchers have proposed several cellular explanations, from receptors being pulled inside cells to changes in their signalling partners. It is tightly controlled, Schedule II in the United States and Class A in Britain, and it also sits on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.
Source: Morphine
