ABSTRACT
Morphine is the best molecule available for dulling acute and chronic severe pain. Morphine was isolated at roughly the same time by Jean-Francois Derosne, Armand Seguin and Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner, but as Serturner’s work was publicized by Gay-Lussac, he usually gets the credit. Codeine is a prodrug in effect; morphine is the effective agent. Fortunately – or unfortunately – the hypodermic syringe was invented just in time to be used to inject measured doses of morphine into wounded soldiers in the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Morphine and related molecules have exactly the right three-dimensional shape to fit into protein receptors in the brain and spinal cord. When heroin is metabolized in the body, there is a short-lived metabolite called 6-monoacetylmorphine, created by removal of one of the acetyl groups. Morphine binds to one type of receptor while nalbuphine binds to another type.
