 In the late eighteenth century, when the East India Company gained a direct interest in the opium trade through India, another opiate recipe called laudanum became very popular among physicians and their patients.Morphine was discovered as the first active alkaloid extracted from the opium poppy plant in December 1804 in Paderborn, Germany, by Friedrich Sertürner.In 1817 Sertürner reported experiments in which he administered morphine to himself, three young boys, three dogs, and a mouse; all four people almost died.