NUTRITIVE, LAXATIVE, DEMULCENT, ANTISEPTIC 667 



Glucose, dextrose, or grape sugar (C 6 H 12 O 6 ), is the variety 

 present in grapes and other fruit, and in honey. It is 

 obtained by boiling cane sugar, or acting upon it with 

 alcoholic solution of hydrochloric acid, is formed when 

 starch is boiled with water acidulated with sulphuric acid, 

 and is the variety occurring in blood and urine. It is 

 produced when glucosides, such as salicin, amygdalin, digi- 

 talin, etc., are boiled with diluted acid. It is neither so 

 sweet nor so soluble as sucrose, crystallises in six-sided 

 scales, is not charred by sulphuric acid, but forms with it 

 sulphosaccharic acid. It produces a readily crystallisable 

 compound with common salt. 



Laevulose, also termed fructose, is isomeric with dextrose, 

 and is associated with it in most fruits. These two sugars 

 are distinguished by the manner in which they turn a 

 ray of polarised light ; dextrose to the right, laevulose to 

 the left. Laevulose is sweeter than dextrose, and less 

 fermentable. 



Molasses, treacle, theriaca, or sacchari faex, is the un- 

 crystallised, fermentable, syrupy residue from the prepara- 

 tion and refining of sugar. It has a brown colour, a pleasant 

 sweet taste, and a specific gravity of about 1-4. Molasses is 

 the drainings from the raw sugar ; treacle the darker, 

 thicker residue from the moulding process. 



Honey or mel, the saccharine secretion deposited in the 

 honeycomb by the hive bee, when first collected is yellow, 

 translucent, and viscid, and consists of variable proportions 

 of sucrose and laevulose. The popular household expec- 

 torant oxymel is made of eight parts of honey, liquefied 

 by heat, and mixed with one part each of acetic acid and 

 water. 



ACTIONS AND USES. The sugars are members of the 

 carbo-hydrate series of dietetic substances, are digestible and 

 nutritive ; their important function in all the higher animals 

 is the support of animal heat ; they moreover economise 

 the proteids and fats, and directly contribute to the deposits 

 of fat. They are laxatives, demulcents, and antiseptics, and 

 used pharmaceutically as excipients. One or two pounds 

 given to horses or cattle, eight to twelve ounces to sheep or 

 dogs, eight to ten drachms to poultry, increase the amount 



