The Germans synthesized hydromorphone from morphine in 1924 - thirteen years before they developed methadone in 1937. They had synthesized hydrocodone in 1920, oxycodone in 1916, and oxymorphone before that in 1914. Many semi-synthetic derivatives of codeine and morphine were developed by the Germans in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The very first fully synthetic opioid, pethidine/meperidine (Demerol), was developed in Germany in 1932 by Otto Eislib. German scientists and pharmacists began playing around with morphine ever since it was first isolated from the opium poppy in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner. Morphine was always the "gold standard" to the Germans, morphine was always their "darling" discovery, as it changed medicine and pharmacy forever. In 2004, they even celebrated morphine's 200th birthday/anniversary in Germany. I don't know where you got the idea that at the time of methadone's creation, hydromorphone was their "darling" creation. At the time (early 1900's), morphine was the most widely used/abused narcotic drug in Germany and all of Europe and the world, along with it's salt morphine diacetate (heroin). However, they needed improvements on both drugs, and the third, codeine.
All the new drugs they made like hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and oxycodone, etc were an attempt at improving on morphine/heroin and codeine. This was achieved, as the new drugs didn't have the side effect profile of heroin/morphine. They were less prone to cause sedation, respiratory depression, constipation, histamine-related effects, and this included euphoria aswell, etc. At the time, they believed that they were also less addictive - which to this day is arguably true as studies have shown addicts preference for morphine over the the rest.
Codeine was isolated by the French later in 1832.
I obviously know the difference between demerol and dilaudid, it was a 'brain fart' situation.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
