Short answers, pulled from the story.
Friedrich Sertürner isolated morphine in December 1804. He extracted the white crystalline substance from dried latex of opium poppies in Paderborn. This event marked the first time an active alkaloid was extracted from a plant for medicinal use.
Morphine serves as the primary analgesic for acute pain conditions like myocardial infarction and kidney stones. It is also used during labor to manage severe pain and relieves cancer pain according to a 2016 Cochrane review. The drug reduces shortness of breath in patients with advanced cancer or end-stage cardiorespiratory diseases when given at low doses.
The duration of its effect lasts between three to seven hours depending on the method of administration. When given intravenously maximum effect occurs within about twenty minutes while oral administration takes approximately sixty minutes to reach peak levels. Long-acting formulations such as MS Contin and Kadian allow for once-daily dosing.
Marshall D. Gates Jr developed the first total synthesis of morphine in 1952 using coal tar as a starting material. The structural formula was determined by Robert Robinson by 1925. Most commercial morphine comes from poppy straw or latex extraction rather than chemical synthesis.
In 2013 approximately five hundred twenty-three tons of morphine were produced globally. Only about forty-five tons were used directly for pain relief while seventy percent went into making other opioids. Six countries including Australia Canada France Germany the UK and the US consumed seventy-nine percent of the world supply.