Studies on the biochemistry of morphine.

From the earliest times it was known that the administration of various natural substances to man and animals had a pronounced effect on their physiological behaviour. Following the rapid development of chemistry during the latter half of the eighteenth century, many attempts were made to isolate the physiologically active substances in the natural products used in medicine. The progress in organic chemistry during the nineteenth century provided the means to study the structure and synthesise derivatives of many compounds of therapeutic value isolated from natural products, such as morphine from opium and quinine from cinchona bark