DETERMINING THE SOURCE OF THE ADULTERANT 37 1 



castor oil i part and 95 per cent, alcohol 2 parts that has been 

 slightly colored with eosin. This will preserve the form of pro- 

 teid cell-contents and stain them pink. 



Various adulterants have been detected in ground cinnamon: 

 wood and leaves from the cinnamon tree, sawdust from dark- 

 colored woods, ground nutshells, and foreign barks, oil cakes, 

 various cereal products browned to the color of cinnamon, such 

 as bread or biscuit, and ground millet. The presence of cereals 

 will be apparent from the foreign starch, and nutshells will be 

 revealed by the large percentage of stone cells; and any adul- 

 terant will cause a marked difference in the camera lucida draw- 

 ings of the two preparations. 



Sometimes ground cinnamon contains cinnamon bark from 

 which the essential oil has been extracted, and then the powder 

 may have the same appearance under the microscope as that 

 made from the unextracted bark, except that the starch-grains 

 will have become swollen and broken in the process of 

 distillation. 



If it is found desirable the powders may be treated with any 

 or all of the reagents recommended for cinnamon bark, and in 

 doing so it would be advisable to make a fresh mount directly 

 into each reagent employed. 



Determining the Source of the Adulterant.— Of course 

 the possible sources of adulteration are innumerable, but it may 

 be taken for granted that those things will be chosen which are 

 the cheapest and most available, and which at the same time 

 afford the least opportunity for detection. Of all adulterants 

 the hardest to detect are those which have no well-pronounced 

 anatomical characteristics, or those that can be considered adul- 

 terants only because some of their useful substances have been, 

 extracted from them, as when ground cinnamon from which the 

 oil has been extracted is mixed with the ground unextracted bark. 

 And adulterants easiest to detect are those that contain an abun- 

 dance of characteristic starch-grains, such as that from potato 

 and corn, or a large amount of stone cells, as w^hen cocoanut 

 and other nutshells are employed. 



