S56 Report of Chemislry and 



with iwollea body and flabby limbs; 

 aud in whom, a cautious mixture of 

 foxglove, in very small doses, vyitli the 

 quicksilver anii chalk of the Londou 

 PliarmacopcEJa, have already proved 

 abundantly useful ; the first medicinal 

 seems to curb and control scrofulous 

 inflammation, while it imparts tune 

 generally ; and the other ingredient in 

 the employed compound, excites to new 

 and improved secretions. The doses of 

 both Bhoiikl, at tirst, be very small, and 

 1 



Exptrimentul Phdoiophy, [July 1 



pnly gradually augmented. Diet, at the 

 same time, nuist be carefully attended to, 

 as the disorder in question is one es- 

 pecially implicating the assimilating 

 organs. 



The preceding month has not been 

 remarkable for any prevailing disease; 

 in some districts, scarlet fever lias shewn 

 itself, but not with much severity of 

 symptom. 



Beiford-row ; D. UwiNS, M.D. 



June 'Z6, 1823. 



REPORT OF CHEMISTRY AND EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 



T^HE process of fermentation, so Impor- 

 ■■■ taut to the brewers and distillers, and 

 others, of this country, seems destined to 

 undergo, ere long, a very important change, 

 in consequence of a discovery sometime 

 ago made in France, whereby the practi- 

 cabilityand advantage of fermenting woits 

 in close vessels has been fully established ; 

 instead of using broad and open vats, ex- 

 posed fully to the atmospheric air, wliich 

 was formerly thought essential to the first 

 and principal process of fermenting worts. 

 By this new process, a great quantity of 

 alcohol, mixed with the aroma or flavour- 

 ing principle of the wort, from 4J to 5 per 

 Cent, of the whole spirit which the wort. is 

 capable of yielding, after rising in vapour 

 along with the carbonid gas, is condensed 

 therefrom and returned again into the wort, 

 from a kind of alembic, fixed on the close 

 top of the fermenting tun, and connecting 

 therewith only by means of pipes. Messrs, 

 Gray and Daere, in their brewery at West- 

 ham, in Essex, have adopted this new 

 mode of fermenting their wort, and the 

 success attending it is said to be most 

 complete. One essential advantage at- 

 tending the use of a close vessel for fer- 

 menting, is the being able to preserve a 

 more equable temperature in the wort, 

 ■whereby neither the heat of summer nor 

 the cold of winter are able to interrupt or 

 frustrate the process of complete fermen- 

 tation. The exclusion of the oxygen of 

 the atmospheric air from cyder, perry, or 

 British wines, whilst under tho process of 

 fermentation, seems to promise a still 

 greater improvement of the process than 

 has attended the use of this invention in 

 the fermenting of wines on the Continent. 

 Messrs. Deurbroucq and Nichols have 

 taken a patent for constructing the neces- 

 sary apparatus in this country ; of which a 

 plate and description appeared in a late 

 dumber of the " Philosophical Magazine.'' 

 Improved Fnhrkntion •/ Starch. — Accor- 

 ding to the usual methods, the farina or 

 meal of wheat is fermented, with a cer- 

 tain quantity of water, for several days, or 

 even a month ; the ammoniac is then dis- 

 engaged, and a fetid odour is emitted. 

 The object of this preparation is the de- 

 composition and destruction of the gluten 



that conceals the starch. But starch may 

 be made in the space of an hour, by a 

 process which obtains at once the gluten 

 and the starch, without exciting any smell. 

 Knead the meal, under the droppings of 

 water, in a sack of thin linen cloth ; the 

 water attracts the starch, and the gluten 

 remains in the cloth. The water and the 

 starch are then to be passed through a 

 silk sieve, and collected into a vessel: 

 when the starch is deposited, the water is 

 decanted, and there will be in it a quan- 

 tity of a sugared substance, which may be 

 usefully employed in the preparation of 

 certain economical drinks. 



Journal of the Wcatlur and Natural History, 

 kept at Hartfieldf by Dr. T. Foraler, 

 for Mat/ IRi'S. 



The season is remarkably backward; 

 every thing being nearly a fortnight behind 

 last year. 



MONTHLY 



