DENATURED ALCOHOL 247 



the same time safeguarding the revenues, resulted in this ingenious 

 scheme of ' denaturing.' We are fifteen or twenty years behind Ger- 

 many, France 3 and practically all other civilized countries with our 

 recent measure. It is very evident, then, that there is nothing new 

 about denatured alcohol. Our tardiness brings one advantage, how- 

 ever; we may profit by the experience of others. Some of this experi- 

 ence and some of the more important known facts may be considered 

 conveniently under the three heads : the manufacture of alcohol ; de- 

 naturants; and uses of denatured alcohol. 



The Manufacture of Alcohol 



The fact that alcohol results from the fermentation of sugar by 

 means of yeast is well known. Cane or beet sugar, the chemical name 

 for which is sucrose, is first broken up into a mixture of glucose and 

 fructose. This mixture is known as invert-sugar, referring to optical 

 properties which it would take too long to describe. This ' inversion ' 

 is produced by a substance called invertase present in the yeast. It 

 may also be accomplished by the action of dilute acids. The glucose 

 and fructose then undergo fermentation, a splitting up into ethyl alco- 

 hol and carbon dioxide, as a result of the growth of the yeast plant. 

 Pasteur's long and brilliant investigations led him to believe that fer- 

 mentation could never occur except when accompanying some kind of 

 multiplication of cells, either yeast cells or bacteria, i. e., some form 

 of living protoplasm, and that it was thus a physiological phenomenon. 

 By means of great pressures, Buchner, however, succeeded in extract- 

 ing from yeast a liquid which contained no cells and no living proto- 

 plasm and yet produced fermentation. The German name for this 

 liquid is Presssaft, which may be translated into ' press-fluid.' The 

 fermentation is produced by a substance, which Buchner called zymase, 

 in solution in this ( press-fluid.' Since then numerous other similar 

 substances have been discovered which produce chemical changes, for- 

 merly supposed to occur only in conjunction with life processes. 

 These substances, the inorganic or ' cell-less ' ferments, of which inver- 

 tase and zymase are typical, are known as enzymes. We really know 

 very little about these enzymes or how they work, but they are intensely 

 interesting and many of the ablest scientists of the times are engaged 

 in their study. 



Glucose and fructose are but two of a large number of chemically 

 similar bodies which can be obtained from a great variety of agricul- 

 tural products such as corn, rye, grains of all kinds, apples, grapes 

 and fruits of all kinds, from Irish potatoes and from sweet potatoes, 

 in short, from anything containing either starch or sugar. A list of 



3 In France, the first law relieving from taxes alcohol intended for industrial 

 purposes was passed in 1814. 



