September, 1911.] 



'233 



Edible Products. 



factors in the vital principles of the life 

 of the sugar cane. The glucose is changed 

 into sucrose, and there we have a natural 

 and doubtless a healthful kind of sugar. 



Whenever, however, our skilful che- 

 mists seek the transmutation of copper 

 and silver into gold, as was done by the 

 alchemists of old, or seek to convert rags 

 and woody fibre into sugar, as is possible 

 along certain chemical lines, they leave 

 Nature's processes and Nature's enzyms 

 or ferments, and utilize ordinary chemi- 

 cal reactions in order to bring about the 

 desired results. Those familiar with the 

 dyeing industry know that madder has 

 been superseded throughout the world 

 practically by anthraeine, alizarin, or 

 synthetic madder. Synthetic indigo has 

 also been produced, and glucose is syn- 

 thetic grape sugar, produced by a chemi- 

 cal process without the natural ferments 

 that make up the genuine article. 



The daily press brings the news that 

 Secretary Wilson has issued his pronun- 

 ciamento against the use of saccharin, 

 the investigations of his department 

 having shown that saccharin is injurious 

 to the public health, and should not be 

 used in this country, or at least in inter- 

 state trade, as is now so generally done. 

 Saccharin is not sugar at all, and yet it 

 has a sweetening power similar to that 

 of sugar, but five hundred times greater, 

 and was discovered by Fahlberg when 

 he was proceeding with coal-oil analyses 

 under the direction of Dr. Remsen, now 

 President of the John Hopkin's Univer- 

 sity. Saccharin is now under the ban 

 and a contraband article over nearly all 

 of Europe. Its sale is forbidden in some 

 of the States of Europe, and in others is 

 held under the severest control. In this 

 sountry, on the other hand, we use 

 muriatic acid diluted with water in which 

 to boil starch, and to thus turn out a 

 heavy white syrup, comparatively taste- 

 less, yet sweetish in taste, a product of 

 these chemical reactions which has none 

 of the characteristics of the reactions in 

 our own physical mechanism. 



It is to be regretted that a journal of 

 the high standing of the "New England 

 Grocer" should come out in defence of 

 this synthetic sugar, when every effort 

 should be made to show its defective and 

 chemical ancestry. Some years back, in 

 discussing this matter, we referred to 

 the fact of glucose being made by boiling 

 starch in dilute solutions of sulphuric 

 acid. Our article was copied by the 

 "Literary Digest," and that brought out 

 from Prof. Chandler, of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, an attack upon our statements, 

 which he said were untrue. An investi- 

 gation led to the conclusion that our 

 30 



statements were practically true, and 

 that the denial of their accuracy made 

 by Prof. Chandler was in the nature 

 of a subterfuge, to conceal the method 

 now adopted in this country in the 

 manufacture of glucose. In some of our 

 lexicons glucose is defined as being 

 produced from corn starch with sul- 

 phuric acid, but in the United States 

 there has been a change from sulphuric 

 to hydrochloric acid, probably because 

 of the more brilliant and clearer syrup 

 that can be got with that acid than 

 with sulphuric acid. On the other hand, 

 the sulphuric acid is reported to be 

 still used in Germany, where immense 

 quantities of glucose are manufactured 

 from potatoes, and we are led to infer 

 that the results there are sufficiently 

 satisfactory to the Germans to permit 

 them to maintain the use of sulphuric 

 acid, while our more enterprising 

 chemists have gone over to hydrochloric 

 acid. In the use of sulphuric acid for 

 the conversion of starch into glucose an 

 excess of acid must be used, which must 

 be neutralized by the addition of lime. 

 With the use of sulphuric acid this lime 

 then becomes a sulphate of lime, or our 

 ordinary land plaster, and this is very 

 difficult of sedimentation or of filtration, 

 thus leaving the syrups produced with 

 it more or less cloudy. Presumably 

 the hydrochloric acid gives bright and 

 clearer syrups, and a man of the distin- 

 guished attainments and high standing 

 of Prof. Chandler, of the Columbia 

 School of Mines, in New Fork, would 

 have done better not to have simply 

 denied the accuracy of our statement, 

 but to have gone further and told the 

 whole truth. Some times a part of the 

 truth is very misleading. 



We are afraid that the able editor of 

 the "New England Grocer " has been 

 misled in some similar way, as in this 

 article he praises "nature's glucose" 

 very highly, and leaves it to be inferred 

 that the manufactured glucose is equal- 

 ly meritorious, whereas it lacks that 

 link that binds it to organic matter, the 

 enzym or ferment that effects the 

 translation from starch to glucose and 

 from glucose to sucrose in the natural 

 way. Glucose as now sold on the 

 markets under whatever fanciful name 

 may be attached to it, is a compound 

 brought about by the action of mineral 

 acids on starchy substances, and as such 

 its use is deleterious to the public health 

 and ought to be earnestly condemned. 



