Morphine was first isolated from opium in
1804 by a German pharmacist who named
it “morphium” after Morpheus, the Greek
god of dreams. At the beginning of the
19th century attempts were made to
introduce drugs into the body via the skin
itself, but there was no single tool that
could both pierce the skin and introduce
morphine. The modern hypodermic
syringe—a hollow needle attached to a
pressurized tube—was invented in 1853 by
Alexander Wood (1817–1884), a Scottish
physician, who designed his invention
specifically to inject morphine under the
skin for the purpose of localized pain
relief, not into the vein for systemic effects.
The use of the syringe over previous
methods was thought to allow administration
of the drug in closer proximity to a
nerve, hence, it was thought, facilitating
better pain relief. Wood, although he
recognized that some morphine spread
throughout the body, believed that the
action of opiates administered by subcutaneous injection was mainly localized and therefore
unlikely to cause dependence. Tragically, the first recorded fatality from a syringe-induced overdose
was Wood’s wife, who, like many others at the time, became a “morphinist,” or morphine addict,
while injecting the drug subcutaneously.