382 FOOD AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



difficulty about some strychnine that was put in beer ; he was n ware of the very small 

 quantity that had been put in, because the chemist who had been stupid enough to 

 lend himself to such a transaction had informed him of it. He made up some beer 

 and divided it into two portions, tried for extraneous bitters in one portion by the 

 regular beer way and there was not a sign of it ; he then tried the other portion with 

 a special toxicological process for strychnine and found it. He had, even then, to use 

 eight ounces of the beer for this purpose, to get a really satisfactory ordinary reac- 

 tion. In the present state of chemical knowledge it would not be, in his opinion 

 safe to say they could detect any amount of added bitters to beer, however small, and 

 go to the length of naming those bitters on the quantity they would have usually 

 brought to them by an inspector. With a gallon of beer and an unlimited fee cover- 

 ing many days' work they might, however, be able to do something satisfactori' to- 

 wards it. 



Mr. Allen, in reply: If he had an insufficient quantity of any sample, he certified 

 that the quantity was insufficient for him to form an opinion. 



He understood Mr. Norton to consider it of great importance that they should be 

 able to distinguish between "hops" on the one side and "not hops" on the other; 

 this, he believed, could be done with certainty, ease, and on a very moderate quan- 

 tity of beer. As to the identification of the various hop substitutes he did not pro- 

 fess to be able to distinguish all, but he thought he could already positively recognize 

 caluniba, quassia, colocynth, and some other bitters, including picric acid and picro- 

 toxin, and if the matter became important he believed in a year or two public ana- 

 lysts would have devised methods for the detection of the other bitters, just as they 

 had conquered other analytical difficulties when the occasion arose. 



From the above it, would appear that the lead method, which I em- 

 ployed, is considered by the English analysts as capable of deciding 

 whether substitutes for hops have been used. 



No action seems to have been taken as yet on the question of malt 

 substitutes. 



