iTO Df'. Goiquhoun*t Essay [Sept. 



of wonder how so many chemists, and some of these consider- 

 ably distinguished, formerly attributed so great an agency to 

 starch and to gluten in the bread-fermentation, considering that 

 BO many prominent and apparent discrepancies, as have lately 

 been adverted to, stand opposed to their conjecture. But in 

 point of fact, a strong idea then prevailed, particularly in the 

 case of the Messrs. Aikin, that the saccharine matter in flour is 

 far more minute and immaterial than it is in reality. Of course, 

 the alcoholic fermentation of sugar has long been well known 

 and understood, and perhaps the principal difficulty that ever 

 attended the supposition of its operation, was to find room for its 

 existence in the constitution of dough. 



But the amount of saccharine matter naturally contained in 

 all flour is by no n^eans insignificant ; on the contrary, it is 

 amply sufficient to furnish in its decomposition all that quantity 

 of carbonic acid gas, the development of which marks the 

 progress of fermentation in dough. Thus M. Vogel, on analyz- 

 ing two specimens of ordinary wheaten flour, obtained the 

 following results. From the flour of the Triticum hibernumfl^ii 



Starch 68-0 



Moist gluten 24*0 



Mucilaginous sugar . . . . ,^ ..•jjy. ,,♦ ,^ • . 5*0 

 Vegetable albumen ,/M#,4A^f . 1*5 



And from the flour of the Triticum Spelia, which differs only^^Ji 

 being considered of a; superior quality to the preceding : ^^,^, 



Starch U . 74-0 "^*" 



'- .^ Moist gluten ...2^-0 "'" 



Jiisraia* 'Mucilaginous sugar 5*5 



:»£Cfi3 -'^ Vegetable albumen 0-5* 



"lPt'0ust,t and Edlih,J have also made experiments which lead 

 to the same conclusion ; the latter, in particular, found that by 

 merely washing wheaten flour with water, and then purifying 

 the mucilaginous extract, he obtained 1^ per cent, of crystalliz- 

 able sugar. The properties which Mr. Edlin ascribes to the 



* Journal de Phannacie, iii. 91S. 



+ He ascertained 100 parts of wheaten flour to be composed of about 



Starch 74-5 



Gluten 12*5 



Gummy and saccharme extract 12'0 



A yellow resin 1*0 



lOO'O 

 (Ann. de Chim. et dc Phys. v. 340.) 



t In his Treatise on the Art of Bread-Making, p. 50, his gives the following state- 

 wtnt as the result of his examination of a pound of wheat : 



