April 1 , 1887 . 
xxii THE CHEMIST AND DEUGGIST OF AUSTRALASIA. 
A Modern Pharmaceutical Factory. 
Although Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome and Co., manufac- 
turing chemists, have been established in the old country 
only about eight years, the name of the firm is already as 
familiar to the profession throughout the United Kingdom as 
household words, and they have in that short period sue’ 
ceedod in creating a business which, as regards magnitude, 
far exceeds that of many similar firms which ha's^ebeen estab- 
lished in London for more than a century. 
When they first commenced business in London they im- 
ported their concentrated essences, compressed tablets, malt 
extract, &c., from their factories in the United States, but the 
merits of their specialties, assisted, doubtless, by judicious ad- 
vertising, have commanded such an enormous sale as to 
justify the firm in establishing a factory in London for their 
manufacture. In looking around for a suitable building 
Messrs. Burroughs and Wellcome were fortunate enough to 
meet with a large disused granary on the banks of the river 
Wandie, at Wandsworth, a little above its junction with the 
Thames, which they were able to convert into a most conve- 
nient and capacious factory. Through the courtesy of one of 
the principals we paid a visit to their works recently, and had 
an opportunity of making ourselves acquainted with the per- 
fected methods by which extract of malt is made. That 
manufactured by Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome and Co. is 
known as “Kepler’s,” a preparation w'hich is largely pre- 
scribed by the medical profession in all countries. 
As the position of Extract of Malt in dietetic treatment is 
one of supreme importance, a detailed account of the mode of 
manufacture can hardly prove otherwise than interesting to 
our readers. Barley has been used intone foim or another in 
dietetics from time immemorial. It is a cereal exceptionally 
rich in nutritive materials and digestive ferments. We read 
in the works of Hippocrates of this grain being employed as a 
I'oborant in his day, and it is not difficult to follow its use 
through succeeding times. It is from barley that the malster 
obtains malt, though malt can be manufactured from other 
grains; but, according to impartial and thoroughly reliable 
scientific authorities, no grain equals it for a malt extract. If 
there were any grain that surpassed it, barley would have 
been long since discarded in its favour ; if there is no grain 
that equals it, to make a malt extract of two grains must be 
to make the extract inferior, just in proportion as the grain 
substituted is inferior for the purpose to barley. 
Malt is made by allowing germination to take place in 
barley which has been carefully selected and screened, to re- 
move all other seeds and admixtures of every kind, as stones, 
&c. Germination is induced by moisture and w^armth. As 
soon as the grain begins to germinate the disastate appears. 
When a i>lant stores up carbo-hydrates it does so as starch, 
but when it utilises them it does so as sugar. Disastase is 
|he indispensable agent by whose instrumentality the plant 
converts its starch into sugar, The malster takes advantage 
of germination in two ways ; first, he thus sets the digestive 
ferments in the grain at work, and, by this means converts 
the insoluble constituents into highly assimilable principles 
secondly, as in the Kepler malt, he takes good care in extract- 
ing these valuable nutritious principles that the digestive fer- 
ments are not destroyed or lost, for he is well aware of the 
priceless value set on these for many conditions of disease* 
Therefore, at the point when his experience •warns him that 
germination is sufficiently advanced with a heat which is not 
high enough to kill the disastase, he stops the process. The 
barley employed in Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome and Co.’a. 
factory is malted by a special process w'hich is extraordinarily 
efficient in obtaining all the diastase in the grain. After ger- 
mination the grain is dried by currents of warm air until it ia 
sufficiently dry to allow of screening and grinding in a speci- 
ally constructed mill which does not overheat the malt. 
To make the malt extract, tepid water is poured on the 
ground malt and brought into a mash-pan of a capacity of 
3,000 gallons, where it is mixed by machinery of a recent 
design and carefully warmed by a heating apparatus, ■which is 
so ingeniously constructed that the mixture is kept uniformly 
warm and over-heating of the malt liquor cannot occur. After 
remaining in the mash-vat a sufficient time, the liquid is con- 
ducted into a large filtering apparatus which separates the 
grain from the liquid. When this liquor has been drawn from 
the mash the residuum in the vat is again treated in the same 
manner, and in this way all the diastase is at length extracted 
from the malt. The liquor, now rich in diastase, is run into a 
filtering apparatus of over 300 square feet filtering surface, and 
comes through this, translucent and perfectly clear, in about 
twenty minutes. This rapid filtering process is necessary in 
order that no changes in the fluid may take place. The liquor, 
amounting to about 4,000 gallons, is now taken direct into a 
vacuum pan by suction. 
The vacuum pan is of a new design, specially built to allo-w 
evaporation to occur at a low temperature, and for this pur- 
pose it is connected to a powerful condenser and vacuum 
pump. To condense the vapours generated in the vacuum, a 
stream of very cold water from deeply sunk wells is thrown intf> 
the condenser at the rate of about 75,000 to 80,000 gallons dur- 
ing the process of evaporation, which is continued until the 
liquor is condensed to a proper consistence. 
The vacuum pump is so constructed as to receive water and 
air in such a perfect and unvarying manner that the vacuum 
in the vacuum pan is always maintained at 740 millimeters 
absolute. The vacuum pump, water pump, and the other 
machinery, such as mixing apparatus, malt mill, &c., are driven 
by a 25-horse-power engine. The requisite amount of steam 
is produced in a 30-horse power steel tube boiler. All the 
different apparatus work so harmoniously, and are so per- 
