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eS) REPORT OF THE CHEMIST.  - 193 
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_. a malt liquor has been proven with certainty. Thisis going too far, 
of course, for picrotoxine and picric acid have undoubtedly been found 
in beers, and probably more cases of such adulteration would occasion- 
ally have been discovered were it not for the difficulty of the analysis | 
and the small quantity of matter required for imparting a bitter taste. 
But there is probably much less of this hop substitution than the 
space given it in works on the subject would indicate. Hops not 
only give the bitterness to beer, but also impart-to it its peculiar 
aroma and enhance its keeping qualities, and, unless it were at a 
time when they were very dear, it would hardly pay the brewer to 
sacrifice the good flavor and keeping qualities of his beer in order to 
save a few cents a pound in his bitters. 
All the samples analyzed were found to be free from foreign bit- 
ters, with one exception, No. 4811, which contained a bitter other 
than hops, though not in sufficient quantity to admit of its separa- 
tion and identification. Allthe samples except Nos. 4801, 4811, and 
4815 gave a plainly perceptible odor of hops in the distillate. 
PRESERVING AGENTS. 
We come now to what I consider the most important sephistica- 
tion of beer at the present day and the most reprehensible and most 
deserving of repressive legislation. The use of artificial preserving’ 
agents not only introduces foreign matters into the beer which are 
more or less injurious, according to the nature of the material used, 
but also serves to cover up and hide the results of unskillful brewing 
or unfit materials; giving to the public for consumption a liquor 
that, if left to itself under yeueal conditions, would have become 
offensive to the senses and putrid with corruption long before it was 
offered for sale. 
The only means of preservation allowed by the authorities in Ger- 
many and France is the process called, from the name of its author, 
**Pasteurization.” This processis entirely rational and commendable, 
as it conduces to the preservation of the beer by destroying the germs 
of unhealthy ferments, not by simply paralyzing their activity as an- 
tiseptics do, and moreover it introduces no foreign constituents into 
the beer. Liquid carbonic acid is also coming into use in some of 
the larger Continental breweries. 
Other preservative agents extensively employed at the present day 
are salicylic acid, bisulphite of lime, and boracic acid, 
SALICYLIC ACID. 
Salicylic acid (C,H,O,) was first prepared by Piria and KEttling by 
oxidizing salicyl aldehyd, which had previously been obtained from 
various vegetable sources. It was afterwards obtained from oil of 
wintergreen, which is nearly pure methyl salicylate, a constituent 
also of many other essential oils. Its artificial production from 
phenol (carbolic acid) was discovered by Kolbe and Lautermann in 
1860 but was not put into practical use until 1874, when Professor 
Kolbe succeeded in producing it at a moderate cost. It is now pre- 
‘pared almost exclusively in this way, the cheapness of the method 
aving driven out of the market that which is prepared from oil of 
wintergreen. 
In medicine, besides its use externally as an antiseptic, it is admin- 
istered very extensively internally, its chief application being asa 
AG 87 13 
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