The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [84]
“Perhaps,” I acceded. “Although I suspect Sergeant Borst gets most of his results through tenacity rather than inspiration.”
“Yes.” The Professor nodded. “It might be well to move up the date of our departure.”
After I took my leave, I made for the chemical laboratory. Although many analytic techniques—chromatography, crystal tests, and microscopic examination—would be perfected in the coming years, chemical analysis at this point remained in a formative stage, essentially little more than trial and error. In this case, however, I was able to compress the process and make an educated guess. Since I was dealing with what I assumed was a powerful new drug, I would first seek to determine if the substance was from either the morphia or cocaine families. The only reliable test for the former was Frohde’s, published in 1866 in an article, “Zum Nachweis des Morphiums.” Frohde had introduced molybdate in concentrated sulfuric acid into powdered morphine and observed a set of distinctive changes. The powder turned violet on contact, changed to a strong purplish red, which eventually faded to a weaker brown until finally turning green. Molybdate in concentrated sulfuric acid had since been dubbed “Frohde’s reagent.” As it contained a description of the only definitive test for morphia, the article had been translated from the German and was well known to physicians and chemists. I had first used Frohde’s reagent while I was a student in Chicago.
The lab was empty but still I chose a station at the far end where I might only be casually observed if anyone else arrived. I placed a small amount of the powder that I had taken from Turk’s lair in a test tube and introduced Frohde’s reagent. As soon as the powder struck violet, I knew that I was dealing with a morphiate. The other color changes followed as expected. While a positive result narrowed the question, it did not fully solve the puzzle. There were not, to my knowledge, any morphia derivatives that would rate the praise heaped on this powder by Haggens and his associates, nor had anyone discovered an additive that would render morphia so much more potent.
My next stop was the medical library. I had never heard of the Bayer Company before, so I pored through available medical directories and journals to find out who they were, but at first could find no record of the company at all. Fortunately, with so many members of the staff having studied in Germany, there was a section devoted to imported periodicals and reference materials. In a directory of German corporations, I found a listing for the Bayer Company of Wuppertal, a chemical firm. Checking some entries in a German-English dictionary, I discovered that Bayer was a dye maker. I couldn’t be sure of the extent of Turk’s depraved activities, but I felt certain that selling dye was not among them.
The Bayer Company having been identified, albeit perplexingly I read through journals for any literature relating to a new, exceedingly powerful morphia derivative. For over an hour, I found nothing until, in an 1874 edition of an English publication, Journal of the Chemical Society, I came across an article by a researcher at St. Mary’s Hospital in London named C. R. Alder Wright entitled “On the action of organic acids and their anhydrides on the natural alkaloids.”
Wright was trying to determine the constitution of some natural and purified alkaloids and had boiled powdered morphine with acetic anhydride for several hours. The resulting liquid, which he called “tetra acetyl morphine,” was an acetylized derivative that, given the change in our understanding of the morphia molecule, would now be referred to as “diacetylmorphine.” Wright sent the compound to an associate, who tested it on animals and reported:
“Great prostration, fear, sleepiness speedily following the administration, the eyes being sensitive and pupils dilated, considerable salivation being produced in dogs, and slight tendency to vomiting in some cases, but no actual emesis. Respiration