DISEASES Or WINE. 129 



principally such as are deficient in tannic acid, a timely 

 addition of this is recommended, as a preventive, by 



No one can doubt but that tartaric acid has a 

 great effect in causing the wine to become ropy. A 

 solution of tartaric acid in water quickly becomes 

 mouldy that is, is converted into cellulose, the com- 

 position of which is analogous to that of vegetable 

 mucus. ( 84.) The alcohol of the wine protects the 

 tartaric acid of the wine from spoiling therefore, 

 wines which are poor in alcohol, are more liable to 

 the alteration of their tartaric acid. Sweet wines are 

 more particularly liable to this disease, which some- 

 times disappears without the use of remedies, and 

 sometimes may be removed by the addition of tartaric 

 acid. Era^ois ascribes this ropiness to an excess 

 of gluten (Dumas f and other French writers call 

 it glaiadine), although it is well known that Beccaria's 

 gluten is gliadin and zymon. 



BITTERNESS OF WINE. 



Burgundy wines are particularly exposed to this 

 disease. The result is as if a second fermentation had 

 taken place, inasmuch as a large quantity of carbonic 

 acid is evolved. 



* Geiger, Mag. fur Pharm. Bd. 33, s. 97. 

 + Chimie appliquee aux Arts, tome vi. p. 515. 



K 



