April i, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



185 



THE SOPHISTICATED TRENCH WINES. 



Lovers of the glass that is alleged to exhilarate with mod- 

 eration, and more especially those whose glances melt at the 

 sight of French labels, will be interested in a report i-ecently 

 made to the French Academy of Science by three celebrated 

 chemists. Our California vintners, too, whose machine-made 

 wines by a chemical miracle become five years old within 

 ten days from the press, will also find something to interest 

 them. The report was made apropos of a question sub- 

 mitted by the Paris Chamber of Commerce whether it was 

 permissible to use the salts of strontium to precipitate the 

 excess of plaster added to wine by vintners. The question 

 was referred by the Academy to a committee composed of 

 MM. Berthelot, Duclaux, and Gautier. These eminent 

 savants made the following report: — 



" For above thirty years the employment of plaster in the 

 manipulation of wines has been general throughout the south 

 of France. A recent law has decreed that the maximum quan- 

 tity of sulphate of potassium per litre in merchantable wine 

 shall be two grams, and therefore the wine trade demands a 

 method for reducing the quantity of sulphate in wines on 

 hand to the legal limit. Some of these have already begun 

 to use for this purpose a mixture of tartrate of strontium and 

 tartaric acid. These substances added in the right proportion 

 cause the precipitation of sulphate of strontium and the solu- 

 tion in the wine of bitartrate of potassium. This operation 

 replaces in the wine the tartrate of potassium removed by 

 the plaster, but unfortunately the wine also retains in solu- 

 tion more or less of tartrate of strontium. This salt is not 

 a normal constituent of wine. It is not found in any food- 

 stuff, though it exists in some mineral springs, as, for in- 

 stance, those of Vichy. When pure, these salts are not be- 

 lieved to be poisonous in ordinary doses. 



"The question submitted by the Chamber of Commerce 

 includes in effect a question of principle and one of fact. In 

 principle one might say that, wine being a natural product, 

 the addition of any chemical substance whatever should be 

 looked upon as a falsification, more especially is this the case 

 when the purpose of the substance added is to mask the real 

 character of the wine and deceive the purchaser as to the real 

 nature of the merchandise he purchases. 



"Moreover, it appears to the committee that to furnish the 

 Ohamber of Commerce with a method for deplastering wines 

 will in effect throw the authority of the Academy in favor 

 of plastering, and will, furthermore, seem to promise a fur- 

 ther scheme for destrontianizing the wine, to use a neologism, 

 and so on, ad infinitum. 



" It is necessary to define clearly the point where wine 

 ceases to be a natural product and becomes a chemical fabri- 

 cation. It is to the interest of no one, either among the 

 vintners or among the merchants, to furnish grounds for pro- 

 claiming to the world that French wines are artificial prod- 

 ucts made, not by vintners, but by chemists. The authority 

 of the Academy cannot be used for any such purpose. So 

 much for the question of principle ; no w as to the facts : Though 

 strontium may not be a poison in ordinary doses, and even 

 though it may serve as a useful medicine in certain cases, it 

 is by no means certain that when used in sensible doses, as 

 it must be if it becomes a constituent of an alimentary sub- 

 stance in such common use as wine, it will be without effect 

 upon the bodily functions. It is necessary to be not merely 

 prudent but even timid in deciding whether or not to intro- 

 duce into the bodily circulation mineral elements which 

 normally do not exist there. Such substances, even when 

 ■ apparently innoxious at first, may by their accumulation in 



the body produce at length very grave consequences. What 

 may be innoxious to some persons may be ruinous to others, 

 according to temperament or pre-existing maladies. The ex- 

 periments of M. Soborde have shown that tartrate of stron- 

 tium may produce congestion of the kidney in animals. 

 Still, further, it must be remembered that therapeutic experi- 

 ments with strontium have been conducted with a chemically 

 pure salt. The strontium of commerce is always more or 

 less mixed with salts of baryta, which are not easily separated, 

 and which are very poisonous. The danger would be very 

 great were these salts to become articles of ordinary com- 

 merce, to be usedwithout discrimination or control by vintners 

 and wine merchants. These would buy their supplies in the 

 cheapest markets without regard to purity. We know, too, 

 how difficult it is to use such substances in such exact pro- 

 portions as to get just the desired reaction among the ele- 

 ments employed. 



"For these reasons the committee recommends that the 

 Academy reply to the Chamber of Commerce that it declines 

 to approve of the employment of salts of strontium for de- 

 plastering wines, and reprobates such practices." 



At a subsequent sitting of the Academy M. Quontin con- 

 tributed the result of a study of deplastered wines. The 

 process of deplastering is used only for the purpose of reduc- 

 ing the contents of the wine in potassium sulphate to the 

 legal limit. M. Quontin found in the course of his researches 

 that not only are the chloride, nitrate, and carbonate of 

 baryta commonly used, but also that the tartrate, acetate, and 

 phosphate are employed for this purpose. 



M. Berthelot, in discussing M. Quontin's paper, said that 

 the facts brought to light by M. Quontin's researches bore a 

 character of very grave interest. The deplastering of wines 

 by means of the salts of baryta was not merely a method of 

 falsification of a common alimentary substance, but a real, 

 wholesale manufacture of poisons. 



Gerald McCarthy. 



North Carolina Experiment Station. 



A BOTANICAL LABORATORY. 



Formerly the botanical laboratories were given up al- 

 most entirely to systematic and structural work, this being 

 as much a matter of necessity as of choice, for the physio- 

 logical and bacteriological work are comparatively new 

 branches of the science of botany, requiring specially de- 

 signed apparatus, which is often very costly. Of late years, 

 however, the great scientific and economic value of the 

 latter subjects is being realized, and laboratories are being 

 equipped in which these lines can be pursued. 



One of the finely furnished physiological and bacterio- 

 logical laboratories of this country is that at Purdue Uni- 

 versity Experiment Station, La Fayette, Ind., equipped by 

 Dr. J. C. Arthur. The laboratory consists of five rooms be- 

 side the greenhouse, these being a general laboratory in the 

 centre, a library and herbarium to the west, a bacteriologi- 

 cal room to the east, and a store-rooiii and dark room to the 

 north. The general laboratory has a large window, occupy- 

 ing nearly the whole width of the south side of the room, 

 furnished with light lower curtains and a dark heavy upper 

 one. These can be adjusted so as to tone the light on a 

 bright sunny day, and allow the entrance of all the light 

 possible on a gloomy day. In front of the window is a long 

 table fastened to the wall to prevent vibration as much as 

 possible; this is used for microscopic work. The walls are 

 lined with wall cases and cases of drawers for reagents. 



