Chapter Sixteen: Good heavens! This is a divine medicine, let's collect it!

  New book uploaded, seeking collection, seeking recommendation

  The next day, at noon, just as Countess Isabelle de Narfe was riding in a carriage with Dr. Blornshtein on their way to London, Hloeen had already been successfully synthesized on the third floor of the De Narfe clothing store on Dover Street in London.

  "Jason, these are..." Roman Duran's eyebrows furrowed slightly as she gazed at the two glass beakers filled with pale yellow and light grayish-brown chunky substances, wearing a low-cut, off-the-shoulder pale yellow dress. Beside her stood that French little tailor, his face full of expectation.

  "This is morphine," said Zhu Jishi, pointing to the light yellow powder. "This is extracted from opium and has an effect several times that of opium. As early as 1806, German pharmacist Sertürner successfully isolated it from opium. However, this morphine is not ordinary morphine alkaloid, but rather a further purified and synthesized salt acid salt of morphine, with an effect equivalent to 10 times that of opium."

  "It's equivalent to ten times the strength of opium!" Mrs. Dulan exclaimed, and she immediately spoke a string of French to the young man beside her, who fixed his eyes intently on the glass in Zhu Jishi's hand.

  Zhu Jishi took a look at this gentle-looking young man and thought to himself, "This guy's nicotine addiction must be quite serious. It seems that the misuse of heroin is still prevalent in Europe!" However, he then remembered that most people who smoked heavily in the UK were laborers with little money, and Zhu's eyebrows furrowed in concern.

  "Jason, what's wrong?" asked Mrs. Roman, smiling knowingly. "Are you worried that Henry is in danger?"

  Zhu Jishi shook his head, took another test tube containing a grayish-brown block-like substance and said: "Wait a minute, take a look at this, this is diethyl morphine! This is my invention (Zhu Dashi is getting more and more shameless), the efficacy is three to five times that of hydrochloride morphine!" He paused for a moment, looked at Madame Dulan, and added: "In theory, it can be five times as effective, but that refers to high-purity diethyl morphine. The purity of the diethyl morphine in this test tube is not high, so the efficacy is not that strong, but it's still stronger than ordinary hydrochloride morphine."

  Later generations of H洛因 were also divided into No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 according to their purity. Zhu Jishi can't produce the high-purity "No. 4" H洛因 for now, what's in this trial cup is "No. 2 H洛因", which is roughly equivalent to crude diacetylmorphine. Due to the incomplete reaction between morphine hydrochloride and diacetylmorphine, and Zhu Jishi's first extracted morphine hydrochloride didn't reach its highest purity either, so the resulting diacetylmorphine had a maximum purity of 30%, with the rest being morphine and various impurities.

  "But... how does this work?" Mrs. Dulan picked up a grayish-brown lump and asked Zhu Jishi, "You're not going to have Henry swallow it directly, are you?"

  "Can't swallow, can't swallow so much, taking so many pills will kill you!" Zhu Jishi hurriedly waved his hand, but then suddenly froze.

  It's hard to believe that Zhu Jishi, who was poisoned in 1842, would be a good kid in the 21st century! Because of this poison, not only did he never see it before, but also didn't know how to use it - alas, this lesson is quite profound! A young man born and raised in New China under the red flag, after staying in capitalist Britain for less than two months, actually started engaging in the evil business of manufacturing poisons! It seems that the corrupting influence of the capitalist system on people's hearts is truly formidable...

  After severely condemning the evil capitalist system in his heart, Zhu Jishi still couldn't think of how to use this whole piece of diacetylmorphine. In the end, he could only take out a bit of powdered hydrochloride morphine and then mixed it with a small piece of opium paste, handing it over to the eager Madame Dulan. Still feeling uneasy, he instructed her again: "Let Henri inhale slowly, don't let him finish it all at once." Upon saying this, he shook his head again, "Forget it, I'll just watch him inhale myself!"

  "Ah, okay, let's go downstairs and try it." Madame Dulan handed over the small piece of opium paste mixed with a little salt morphine to Henri, who flew down the stairs like a bird, entered his own room, and Zhu Jishi followed closely behind. This room was extremely tidy, spotless, and completely different from Zhu Jishi's messy den, it seemed that this French kid's addiction wasn't too severe.

  Henry took out a pipe from a small drawer and skillfully loaded it with opium, but instead of using a lamp, he lit a candle and used the flame to light the opium.

  "Oh, God! This stuff is too potent! It's really a divine medicine, I'm about to ascend to heaven, God, thank you for bringing such an amazing medicine into the world, it's truly too amazing..."

  After taking a few puffs of the smoke, the young man began to speak incoherently. Although Zhu Jishi couldn't understand a word of French, seeing the young man's behavior made him feel slightly relieved, knowing that his experiment with making drugs had been successful. He then started thinking about his next step - opening a pharmacy.

  The most important thing is to apply for a patent.

  The patent for diethyl ether must be obtained, but the patents that can be applied for are not limited to diethyl ether. Through this period of understanding of pharmaceutical technology in this era, Zhu Jisheng knew that the most advanced pharmaceutical technology in Europe is still at the stage of extracting alkaloids from plants. For example, morphine is extracted from opium. However, the technology for further chemical processing of these alkaloids seems to have not appeared yet, so the morphine and codeine in this era are directly taken orally, with very poor effects. Therefore, he can still apply for diethyl ether, hydrochloride morphine, hydrochloride codeine, etc., which are chemically synthesized using alkaloids. Compared with direct oral administration of alkaloids, the efficacy of chemically synthesized substances that have undergone further processing and purification is significantly improved, and they are also easy to make into injectable needles.

  This is not a minor progress. Take berberine hydrochloride as an example, this drug, also known as Huanglian Su in later generations of Chinese people, is actually a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent, which has antibacterial effects on hemolytic streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Shigella flexneri, Salmonella typhi, and also has the effect of enhancing white blood cell phagocytosis. It also has different degrees of inhibitory effects on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Yersinia pestis, and Entamoeba histolytica.

  Of course, the antibacterial effect of berberine cannot be compared with most antibiotics in later generations. However, in this era when no antibiotics can be used, it is not an exaggeration to call berberine a "miracle drug"! In the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in traditional Chinese medicine, large doses of berberine will be used. In the 1950s, many hospitals in mainland China even cured patients with pulmonary tuberculosis with berberine - the effect cannot be compared with streptomycin, but it can cure a few and prolong the lives of most patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Adding dihydrocodeine to pulmonary tuberculosis syrup can make some wealthy patients with pulmonary tuberculosis survive more comfortably.

  Zhu Jishi estimated that as long as he had the patent for hydrochloride of codeine, hydrochloride of morphine and diethyl morphine, these three original medicines, and then developed "special effect" patented medicines based on them to treat common diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera and colds, he should be able to make a fortune in this era.

  As for penicillin and streptomycin, Zhu Dajizheng also planned to secretly produce some in the laboratory for backup. However, mass production was out of the question, as the chemical industry level of this era was too poor, making it impossible to industrially produce penicillin and streptomycin on a large scale. Moreover, with the easily producible berberine, why would Zhu Jizheng bother with complicated penicillin and streptomycin?

  His purpose in opening a pharmacy was not really to benefit humanity, but to represent the Chinese people and earn back the silver lost in the Opium War!

  Zhu Jishi, who had studied basic medicine for over 6 years, was very clear about how to make money from pharmaceuticals. A highly effective special medicine may not necessarily be more profitable than a common or even ineffective one - because if it cures the patient immediately, won't that put an end to the business? If a panacea were ever invented, most of the world's pharmaceutical factories would go bankrupt, and most doctors would probably lose their jobs!

  So in this world, effective but hard to truly cure diseases drugs are often more profitable than the good medicine that cures the disease. And morphine hydrochloride, diethyl ether and morphine hydrobromide obviously meet such conditions.

  The first two are only symptomatic treatments that are highly addictive, while the latter is a broad-spectrum antibacterial drug that is only effective in treating diarrhea. Berberine has poor oral absorption and can only act on the gastrointestinal tract; if administered subcutaneously, it stays in the body for a short period of time, requiring large doses to be effective against diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, puerperal fever, scarlet fever, dysentery, and pulmonary tuberculosis. Therefore, in Zhu's plan, berberine hydrochloride will be a best-selling drug, and due to Zhu owning the patent for this era's only effective antibacterial drug, the price will not be low... Hehe, inventing penicillin or streptomycin to slaughter whites of this era is not a feat; if one can swindle hundreds of millions of pounds with berberine, it would be worthy of the many years of cultivation by the Tianxia Medical College!