100 Memoir on the Saccharine Diabetes. 
to the air; it therefore presented, in a weak degree, all the 
characters of a spirituous fermentation. 
When distilled in a retort, or evaporated in a capsule, the 
phenomena were the same ; it becamre turbid, thickened by 
little and little, and was reduced to a syrup sometimes equi- 
valent to a seventeenth, sometimes a twentieth, but never 
Jess than a thirtieth of its own aveight. We extracted in 
this manner from the urine we treated, nearly thirty pounds 
of this syrup, which upon cooling always became one mass, 
composed of a multitude of small grains without consist- 
ency. These soft granulated crystals being hardly sweet, it 
was natural to think that the substance of which they were 
formed was not homogeneous, and contained only a very 
small quantity of the saccharine principle. In order to 
ascertain it, the following experiments were made : 
We took 100 parts of this substance and distilled it in a 
retort, the neck of which was inserted into a receiver which 
was continually kept at a low temperature. We obtained 
plenty of water, a little oil, and no ammonia; a great quan- 
tity of gases a little fetid, and abundance of charcoal easily 
incinerated, yiclding, upon complete incineration, two parts 
and a half of sea salt and one half part of phosphate of lime. 
From this result may be drawn the three following con- 
sequences :—I1st, [That this substance contains no animal 
matter, since when calcined it yields no volatile alkali: 
2d, That it contains very little saline matter, because when 
reduced to ashes it only presents a residue equal to some 
one hundredth parts of us weight: 3d, That it is formed of 
vegetable principles alone, because it gives all the products 
ot vegetables upon being distilled. 
Presuming that the sugar was one of these principles, and 
forming no kind of conjecture upon the nature of those 
with which it was supposed to be mixed, we resolved to 
employ fermentation to destroy the former, and to keep the 
latter principles unaltered, in such a manner, that by fil- 
tration and evaporation we ought to have obtained them 
very pure. We mixed in a large flask 100 grammes of the 
substance to be analysed, 25 grammes of ferment, and 500 
l grammes 
a ee 
