x. The Tragic Beginning of Heroin .x

Heroin was first formed by English chemist C.R. Alder Wright in 1874 by combining morphine with various acids. Anhydrous morphine alkaloid and acetic anhydride was boiled on a stove for hours to produce a more powerful, acetylated form of morphine, now called diacetylmorphine. The compound was then sent for analysis and turned out to be a failure.

23 years later, the diacetylmorphine was modified by Felix Hoffman, who was instructed to produce codeine by acetylating morphine. But instead of producting codeine, the experiment produced a compound 150 to 200% more powerful than morphine itself. The substance was later named "heroin", which came from the German word, heroisch, meaning heroic. This was because in field studies people using the medicine felt "heroic".

Heroin was thought to be a non-addictive morphine substitute and a cough medicine from 1898 to 1910. It was then discovered that "Heroin" was basically only a quicker acting form of morphine.