Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

by Paul A. Offit

ALTHOUGH OPIUM WAS CLEARLY addictive to individuals and destructive to society, its pain-relieving properties were undeniable. No other drug could match it. Scientists were desperate to find a way to retain opium’s analgesic properties while jettisoning its addictive properties. In the early 1800s, a young German chemist became the first to try. In 1803, Friedrich Sertürner, a 20-year-old chemist’s apprentice, isolated opium’s most abundant and most active ingredient. He named it morphium after the Greek god of dreams: Morpheus. Later, the name was changed to morphine. Sertürner never trained at a university, never earned a degree, had no professional standing, made his own laboratory equipment, and tested the effects of his newfound product on the only person he could find to do it: himself. A shy and solitary man, this remarkably young chemist’s apprentice would soon change the face of medicine. Sertürner found that morphine was about six times more powerful than opium, causing almost immediate euphoria followed by depression and dependence. When he finished his studies, he was addicted to the drug. Worried that he had created a monster, Sertürner warned, “I consider it my duty to attract attention to the terrible effects of this new substance I called morphium in order that calamity may be averted.” Sertürner’s warning went unheard. By 1827, the German pharmaceutical company Merck began mass-producing the drug. European doctors soon prescribed morphine for a variety of ...