376 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Surgeons and physicians who have made use of any of the well-known in- 

 gredients of Listerine can attest their value, and will not fail to appreciate the 

 advantage of having them always at hand in a suitable combination. — Louisville 

 Medical News. 



PULQUE. 



Pulque is the national drink of the Mexicans. It is produced by the fer- 

 mentation of the maguey or Agave Americana. This plant has been considered 

 diuretic and antisyphilitic. There is no authenic record as to who first made 

 pulque or neutli. Many are the traditions extant among the Mexicans concern- 

 ing its first manufacturer. It seems, however, to be the more general belief that 

 it was Xochitl, daughter of a nobleman called Papantezin, who lived in the time of 

 Tapancaltzin, eighth king of the Toltecs. From time immemorial pulque has been 

 considered to contain medicinal virtues in a very high degree as well as all the 

 other products of the maguey, and at one time the maguey was even said to hold 

 a spiritual life and was held in reverence. To-day pulque is esteemed by the ig- 

 norant classes as having a variety of curative powers, and physicians use it for 

 its alcohoUic and nutritive properties. It is held as a stiumlant, tonic and anti- 

 spasmodic. They recommend it to the infirm, weak, anaemic, and nursing 

 mothers. 



It is obtained by fermenting the juice expressed from the central portion of 

 the maguey plant. After expressing the juice between rollers, or as was former- 

 ly done by means of suction, it is carried to the vats for fermentation. These 

 vats consist of raw ox hides loosely suspended in a strong wooden frame, with 

 the hair on the outside. These hide-made vessels contain the cryptococcus or 

 ferment, which is a residuum of the former fermentations. After a few hours 

 fermentation is fully established and the pulque is drawn off, always leaving a 

 residuum in the vessel for the next fermentation. The liquid obtained from the 

 maguey plant has a density varying from 1.029 to 1.042 and contains in 100 

 parts 9.553 of sugar, 0.540 of gum and soluble albumen, 0.726 salts, and 89.181 

 of water holding in solution resinous matter, fats, albuminoids, starch, dextrine 

 and glucose. 



According to Don Jose Ramos, its salts contain potash, soda and lime in 

 moderate proportions, and magnesia and alumina as chlorides, carbonates, sul- 

 phates and silicates; hence the great value in which it must have been held in 

 former times and in which it ought to be held at the present day. 



From the composition of the juice of the maguey one may have an idea of 

 the therapeutic effects of the pulque, allowing for the change which these constit- 

 uents may undergo through fermentation. Pulque has no definite proportion of 

 alcohol, for one may readily see from the way it is manufactured that it cannot 

 have any definite standard. It, however, contains a very small proportion of 

 fusil oil, and carbonic acid in large quantities. Considering that its manufacture 



