Julie,

While doing survey along remote sections of the abandoned Copper River Railroad
(1908-1938) in 1992 we discovered a corked medicine bottle with white powdery
contents, along with Chinese magazines, in the attic of a section house.  The
bottle was tucked inside a baking soda can, along with a sharpened stick, and
secured with a 1920 newspaper.  Sure that the bottle contained narcotics, I
arranged with contacts at the state crime laboratory to do analysis.  In short,
mass spec. indicated the contents to be strychnine.  My suggestion is that -- if
you can arrange for your local crime lab to do analysis, their analytic equipment
is already set up to compare samples with a database of stored profiles for
narcotics, poisons, etc.

Dave McMahan

Julie Schablitsky wrote:

> Dear Histarchers,
>
> Do you have any references or experiences with identifying morphine or other
> opiates from syringes, medicine bottles, or any other artifact?  I am aware of
> Espenshade's work at Camp Baird, South Carolina using the mass spec.  I also
> heard of another unsuccessful attempt to extract morphine from a medicine
> capsule...reference unknown.  I would greatly appreciate any additional
> references or experiences on the successful or unsucessful attempts at opiate
> recovery from artifacts.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Julie Schablitsky