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REPORT OF THE CHEMIST. - 
1 > Meeveral days, and found no appreciable ill effects to follow its use.* 
Whether such experiments suffice to prove its harmlessness when 
used for many years and without regard to age, sex, or personal 
idiosyncrasy, is still an open question. A most interesting and ex- 
- haustive discussion of the reasons for and against its use can be > 
found in the report of the fourth meeting of the ‘‘ Independent Union 
of the Bavarian Representatives of Applied Chemistry, at Niirnberg, 
“th and 8th August, 1885,”+ when this body refused, with but one 
dissenting voice, to grant its sanction to the proposed use of salicylic 
‘acid in beer in the quantity of .05 grams to the liter. Certainly no 
one would deny the advisability of at least restricting the amount 
to be used of so powerful an agent. In an article of daily consump- 
tion, and in consideration of the prevalence of kidney disease{ at the 
present day, it is a matter worthy of grave consideration whether 
it.would not be more prudent to forbid its use altogether, At all 
events, beer in which it is used should be sold under its proper desig- 
nation as ‘‘salicylated beer.” It would certainly be of interest to 
the physician who prescribes beer as a tonie to a weak convalescent 
invalid to know if he were giving at the same time not inconsider- 
able doses of a strong therapeutic agent, expressly contra-indicated, 
perhaps, in the case he has on hand. 
SALICYLIC ACID IN SAMPLES EXAMINED, BY THIS DIVISION. 
Out of thirty-two samples analyzed by this division IT found seven 
to contain salicylic acid in sufficient quantities to admit of qualitative . 
proof, or nearly one-fourth of the entire number analyzed. The 
serial numbers of these beers corresponding to those in the large 
table on page 191 are as follows: 4801-3-5-6-17-23-25. These were 
all bottled beers, one being an imported (Kaiser) beer. None was 
found in any of the draught beers. Of the nineteen samples of Amer- 
ican bottled beers, six contained salicylic acid, or nearly one-third. 
These included the product of some of the largest breweries in the 
country, beers that are used to a very large extent all over the United 
States. Whether the acid is added in the breweries where the beer 
is made, or whether it is used by the local bottlers, I am unable to 
decide. In one case I found it in the beer sold here under the brand 
of a large Western brewery, and sent direct to the same brewery for 
another sample, which gave no test for the acid. Unfortunately I 
can not be sure in this case that the firm in question did not know 
the purpose for which the sample was intended. 
\ 
SULPHITES, 
The use of sulphurous acid as a preservative agent in beer and 
wine, either in the form of soluble sulphites, liquid sulphite of lime, 
or sulphur fumes, is not at all recent. It is one of the oldest preserv- 
atives known. Together with other chemical preservatives its use is 
forbidden in France, and the German authorities jnclude it with 
borax as an agent whose physiological effect is still too little known 
to allow of its indiscriminate use. It is also sometimes introduced 
into beers by the hops, which are very generally preserved by means 
_of sulphur fumes. The Bavarian authorities allow its use in sulphur- 
* Jour. prak, Chem. 18, 106. Reference may be made to similar experiments, as 
follows: J..A. Barral, Jour. de lV Agriculture, 1882, 69. M. Blas, Bull. de lAcad. - 
Royale de Méd. de Belgique. Bd. 12, No. 9. : 
+ Published by Drs. A. Hilger and R. Kayser, Berlin, 1886. 
¢ The most common form is popularly known as ‘‘ Bright’s disease,” 
Tage es 
