3 58 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



\is\r\g good things in hurtful excess. The essential oil of bitter almonds ex- 

 tracted from cherry laurel leaves, or from bitter almond kernels, is liable to 

 retain a poisonous proportion of the hydrocyanic acid, and its use in flavoring 

 extracts, for pastry, etc., has now and tlieu produced illness and even fatal re- 

 sults, more frequently \vith children. If made free from hydrocyanic acid, as 

 the manufacturers should do, the essential oil is harmless in any quantity, and 

 the essences, extracts, -waters, etc., made from it can be used witli entire safety. 

 If long exposed to the air, the oil deposits a slight sediment of benzoic acid, 

 Avhich is Ijarmless. The danger in the use of bitter almond oil from the 

 amygdaline of plants lies in possible neglect of removing the hv'drocyanic acid. 

 Then, in tiie next place, there is another substance which has the same odor as 

 bitter almond oil, viz. : a substance named nitrobenzene and sometimes desig- 

 nated "oil of mirbane," a body wliich is in itself very poisonous, either when 

 taken into the stomach or inhaled into the lungs. It is a very cheap substitute 

 for actual bitter almond oil, which it resembles only in the odor. It has been 

 manufactured for twenty years, from coal tar, great quantities of it being used 

 in making aniline dyes. It is from this article that many cheap grades of soap 

 have been saturated -with the smell of almond, of late years, quite to the dis- 

 credit of tlie flavor. Unscrupulous manufacturers have used it in confectionery, 

 and the danger of its substitution in culinary extracts besets tlie public, who 

 cannot employ analysts for the examination of every manufactured article 

 purchased for the kitchen. But if chemical art furnished a temptation for the 

 improper substitution of nitrobenzene, it has lately compensated for it by dis- 

 covering the manufacture of actual bitter almond oil itself, a pure article, at 

 once real and artificial, and by means so cheap that they are likely to remove 

 the temptation to use nitrobenzene. German samples of this new product were 

 on exhibition at the Centennial last summer. 



4. Flavoring Etheks. ^Many other odor-giving constituents, beside that 

 of the almond, are subjects of chemical manufacture. For example, oil of 

 wintergrecn (found in the berry and otlior parts), is well known to be cliiefly 

 salicylate of methyl, readily prepared from salicylic acid and wood alcohol ; and 

 the oil or essence of pineapple is precisely butyric etlier, manufactured largely 

 from waste materials. Acetate of amyl, and valerate of amyl are supposed to 

 represent the flavor of the apple and the pear, but how accurately they coin- 

 cide with the actual flavor-substances of these fruits has not been demon- 

 strated. Formate of ethyl, another compound ether, is used in so called 

 peach-essence. IsmnoYous fndf Jtacurs, used for culinary extracts and largely 

 for soda-fountain syrups, are maimfactured as mixtures of ethers, by recipes 

 varying with difiierent manufacturers. Many of these, resting on no due 

 authority, are unwholesome mixtures, often spurious imitations of tiie true 

 fruit flavors, and again hurtful by reason of excessive proportions. As to the 

 chemistry of the production of flavoring ethers in plants, some guesses were pre- 

 sented under the head of sugar fermentation. 



5. Alkaloids. Siihdancex f^tronghj affecting the )icn'ou.^ sijfitem, as medi- 

 cines or poisons, of course do not occur in the edible fruits, and we are not in 

 the habit of placing potent compounds among the constituents of fruits as a 

 class, nevertheless, Avhen we tiiink of it, no small proportion of the banes and 

 antidotes of the vegetable kingdom is matured in seeds and their coverings. In 

 the pop[)y fruit, the capsule or pericarp furnislies at least sixteen distinct alka- 

 loids, including mori)hine, wliile the seeds are harmless and yield an oil much 

 used for food. l\\ the fruit of the nux vomica, the seeds are deadly with 



