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Frank A. Schlitz has kindly made for me a special analysis of M'Munn's Elixir, which seems to prove that the process of its preparation amounts to more than the denarcotization of opium, which is spoken of on the wrapper of each vial.
No fateful contingency could pursue him inside M'Munn's enchanted circle. He was a young and wealthy bachelor, living the life of a refined bon vivant; an insatiable traveller, surrounded by flatterers, and without a single friend who loved him enough to warn him of his danger excepting those who, like himself, were too ignorant to know it.
As nearly as can be ascertained, M'Munn's Elixir is simply an aqueous infusion of opium procured by the ordinary maceration and preserved from decomposing by the subsequent addition of a small portion of alcohol. Narcotin being absolutely insoluble in water is eliminated as the circular says. This fact alone would not account for the difference between its action and that of laudanum.
By the time that the daily habit fastened itself he had learned of other opiate preparations than M'Munn's, and finding a certain insufficiency characterize that tincture as he increased the size of the dose, had recourse to laudanum, which contains the full native vigor of the drug unmodified. This nauseated him.
In two cases he had no respite of agony from the moment he dropped till he resumed it. He had first learned its seductions, as happens with the vast majority of Anglo-Saxon opium-eaters, through a medical prescription. An attack of inflamed cornea was treated with caustic applications, and the pain assuaged by internal doses of M'Munn's Elixir.
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