322 ADULTERATION OF WAX. 



has enormously increased since 1S51, and that many of the printing 

 establishments in this country, and also, no doubt, on the Cont inent, 

 have doubled their productions ; and it may be added, on the authority 

 of Mr. E. Potter, M.P., that the quantity of printed goods exported, 

 which, in 1851, was about six and a half millions of pieces, had risen, in 

 1857, to about twenty-seven millions of pieces. 



ADULTERATION OF WAX. 



BT BARXARD S. PROCTOR. 



Was, both in its bleached and unbleaehed conditions, is much sub- 

 ject to adulteration, so much so, that the purity of foreign yellow wax 

 is always considered as very doubtful, and the impurity of white cake 

 wax is generally looked upon as almost certain. The foreign matters 

 fraudulently occurring in either variety may be divided into two classes : 

 those which are fusible or soluble in melted wax, at water-bath tem- 

 perature, and those which remain solid or unmixed with the melted wax 

 under these circumstances. The latter, being so easily detected, are 

 much less frequently present, and require no special notice at present. 

 Resin, fat, and spermaceti are the principal materials to be looked for in 

 the former class. Christison and Pereira both refer to all these materials? 

 and instruct us to examine for resin by the action of cold alcohol, which 

 they say removes nothing from pure wax ; this, however, will be looked 

 upon with doubt, since recent analyses of wax show that one of its prin- 

 ciples (cerolein) is soluble in cold alcohol. It constitutes four or five 

 per cent, of the wax ; it is of a greasy nature, and imparts colour, odour, 

 and tenacity, which are wanting in the other two constituents (cerotic 

 acid, the amount of which varies from 22 per cent, downwards, and my- 

 ricin, which forms the great bulk of the material). 



Fatty matters are to be detected, according to the above authors, by 

 the softness, stickiness, the odour and the taste which they impart. 

 Spermaceti, which we are informed is constantly added to white wax to 

 improve its colour, is passed over without any means for its detection 

 being suggested ; this, no doubt, arises from the analogy in the chemi- 

 cal characters of the two materials affording no ready means by which 

 to recognise an admixture, and from the fact that, phamiaceutically and 

 therapeutically, there is no great difference in the properties and value 

 of the two. 



It is a deception, however, which is only tolerated, either in phar- 

 macy or commerce, from the difficulty of obtaining any decided results 

 from any examination not too complicated for the purposes of the retail 

 trader. 



