ADULTERATION OF FOOD, DRUGS, ETC. 547 
Pure aloetine becomes purgative when it has been altered 
by the action of air and heat. Associated with pulvis ferri, 
it will probably be of great assistance in the treatment of 
fevers. 
In a chemical point of view , — Aloetine is a crystallizable 
substance, formed solely of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It 
may be obtained by very easy processes, but only with the 
juice of Socotrine aloes, or with those opaque extracts which 
air and heat have not altered so as to render all their 
crystals amorphous. 
It is aloetine which gives, by treatment with chlorine, the 
crystallizable compounds to which I have given the names of 
chloralise and chloralo’ile. 
Journal de Pharmacie, April, 1856 . — The Chemist. 
THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD, DRUGS, &c. 
( Continued from p. 296.) 
[Although our selections were made for the above article, 
we again prefer the condensation given by the editor of the 
Pharmaceutical Journal .] 
April 16. — Mr. T. K. Collar d, baker, Durham Terrace, 
St. John’s Wood, stated, in reference to the use of alum in 
bread, that he had been ten years in the business, and had 
never used a particle of alum in making bread. He was not 
peculiar in this respect, having received forty-three letters 
from bakers in London, who were prepared to state upon 
oath that they did not use alum. Witness thought that a 
large proportion of the trade were anxious that something 
should be done to prevent the use of alum, if it could be 
done without checking improvements also. As the law stood 
at present, the baker who made the “ unfermented bread,” 
which was considered by many medical men as the most 
wholesome, was liable to fine and imprisonment. 
Mr. Robinson , Judd Street, baker, stated to the Committee 
that, in order to test Dr. Normandy’s accuracy, he had sent 
to the doctor a sample of flour and two loaves, one perfectly 
pure, and another containing alum in the proportion of 1 oz. 
to 16 lb. of bread. After analysing them, Dr. Normandy 
gave him a certificate , stating they tv ere all perfectly pure , and 
that witness was one of the few bakers in London whose 
bread was not adulterated. Since then Dr. Normandy had 
