Morphine: Painkiller From the Poppy

Serturner isolated morphine from opium in 1804 and named it after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. It binds opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord to blunt severe pain, and battlefield medicine leaned on it for two centuries. Its structure seeded codeine, oxycodone, and a family of analogs with the addiction crisis attached. Careful stewardship of opioids remains a central problem of modern medicine..

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