6.4 Extending skills


Suggested divisions Paragraph 1 • origin in Med. – now many countries • small round seeds = food source • opium from seed pods


• workers scrape resin frm. pods g dehydrated g opium blocks


Paragraph 2 • 1st


ref. opium Sumeria (2100 BCE) (some researchers)


• 15 prescrip. clay tablet – ingredients plant, animal, mineral – some still used


• T eophrastus (300 BCE) 1st extraction/processing


detailed descr. opium


• T eo.’s descr. used by physicians in ancient Rome (poppy seed tea already used)


Paragraph 3 • from 1500 – op. more widely used Europe


• 1500s laudanum – little pills – opium + citrus juice


• over times diff . additives • 1800s laud. = liquid – 10% op. – presc. range ill. • v. addictive – late 1800s literature descr. problems Paragraph 4


• opiates + opioids created to minimize add. + retain analgesic qualities of opium


• 1st opiate morphine – comm. pharm. Germany 1827


• eff ective painkiller – but addictive! • 2nd


opiate diamorphine > concent. morphine


• 1890s diamorph. commercially sold as Heroin – ‘non-addictive morphine’! – but highly addictive


• dev. of opioids (e.g., oxycodone) sim. mechanism to opiates but not derived from opium


• opioids also highly addictive Paragraph 5


• worldwide legislation to control opiates + opioids by prescript. limited success – harmed by:


• illegal markets, e.g., 2019 Europe market illegal heroin > €7bn.


• opioid overprescription esp. US


• late 1990s drug companies – false assurances opioids non-addictive


• overprescribing oxy. + other synthetic opioids


• 2016 opioid epidemic declared national public health emergency in US


3. Set for individual work or pairwork. Depending on the group and the amount of time available, you may want to allocate individual paragraphs. You could also ask students to complete the full text as a homework task.


6.4_B


Monitor and encourage. If appropriate, feed back visually using the model answer provided below and in the PDF.


Model answer Drugs from plants: the opium poppy


One of the best-known examples of a plant source of a medicine is the opium poppy. T e plant originated in the Mediterranean region but is now grown in many parts of the world. T e seeds of the plant are small and round and can be used as a source of food. T e seed pods of the plant are used to produce the drug opium. Labourers scrape off the resin produced by the pods, which is then dehydrated and formed into blocks of opium.


Some researchers believe that the fi rst reference to opium is on a clay tablet from Sumeria that has been dated to around 2100 BCE. On the tablet, 15 medical prescriptions are listed, including some animal, plant and mineral ingredients which are still in use today. However, T eophrastus’s Historia Plantarum, a book on the properties of diff erent plants which was written in around 300 BCE, is generally agreed by scholars to provide the fi rst detailed description of opium extraction and processing. As a result of T eophrastus’s description, in ancient Rome, where poppy seed tea was already used to relieve patients of their pain, the poppy plant could be employed by physicians more eff ectively.


From around 1500, opium became more widely used as a medicine in Europe. It fi rst appeared as laudanum in the form of little pills which combined raw opium with citrus juices. Over time, diff erent substances were added to the opium. By the 1800s, laudanum was produced in liquid form and contained only extracts of opium (typically around 10%). It was prescribed for a very wide range of illnesses. While the opium content was relatively low, laudanum was very addictive, and by the late 1800s, articles began to appear discussing solutions to this problem.


Opiates and opioids were created to avoid the addictive nature of opium while retaining its analgesic qualities. T e fi rst opiate, morphine, was commercially produced as a pharmaceutical


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