August 27,1370.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
169 
hardness) is made up of those living in Birmingham, 
King’s Norton and Aston, the density of population be¬ 
ing respectively 100’, 1*37, and 27 persons to the acre, 
the mortality being also respectively 26-5 per 1000, 17*1, 
and 21 per 1000. This varying mortality cannot surely 
be owing to the water, which is the same in all the 
three cases. 
Again, Liverpool having water of 9-6° of hardness is 
composed of Liverpool and West Derby, the mortality 
being in the former place 33-29, and in the latter 22-73 
per 1000. Here, again, the water is exactly the same, 
but the density of population is respectively 100 and 37 
per acre. 
Sheffield, a soft-water town, is composed of Sheffield 
and Eccleshall, the mortality in the two places being 
28-45 and 22-75. 
Manchester, Salford and Charlton-on-Medlock, all 
places supplied with the soft water of the Manchester 
Waterworks, exhibited a mortality at the time the table 
was prepared of 31-48, 26-00 and 23-94 per 1000 persons 
respectively. If the high death-rate in Manchester 
were due to the soft water, why did it not poison as 
many persons in the 1000 at Chorlton-on-Medlock and 
at Salford ? 
Instances from all quarters of the kingdom could be 
crowded upon each other showing a like result, and the 
fallacy of the deductions which have been drawn from 
such unfair statistics as have been thus only slightly 
exposed. 
The fact is that neither hard water nor soft water 
appears to exercise any perceptible influence on the 
tables of mortality. Both, so far as those characters are 
concerned, appear to be equally wholesome; and though 
many painful diseases which are not fatal are, with 
reason, believed to be aggravated by the use of hard 
water, there is no reason for assuming that any influ¬ 
ence is exercised upon the death-rate by the mere hard¬ 
ness or softness of water. 
While it is thus most conclusively shown that, as 
compared with hard water, soft water is not injurious to 
health, the economic benefits which attend the use of 
soft water are so striking and so great, that those people 
may consider themselves happy indeed who have the 
advantage of such deliciously pure and soft water as the 
waterworks of Glasgow and Manchester afford. 
In Glasgow, the saving to the consumer of water for 
domestic purposes only consequent on the introduction 
of Loch Katrine water in the place of Clyde water was 
£40,000 per annum, equal to the interest on the entire 
cost of the new works. This great advantage, too, has 
been obtained without levying a higher rate on the 
rental of houses than had previously existed, so that the 
people of Glasgow have paid no more per head for their 
water than they had done before, while at the same 
time they put £40,000 a year into their pockets. 
Similar advantages have attended the supply to Man¬ 
chester, but they have not been so obvious, because the 
change in the water-supply was introduced gradually, 
instead of being made at once from hard water to soft. 
INVERTED SUGAR. 
BY JAMES DEW r AB, F.R.S.E. 
Lecturer on Chemistry , Veterinary College , Edinburgh. 
For some time past an animated discussion has been 
going on in the columns of the ‘ Comptes Rendus de 
l’Academie des Sciences’ between MM. Dubranfaut and 
Maumene regarding the nature of inverted sugar. M. 
Dubranfaut, many years ago, made many valuable ad¬ 
ditions to our knowledge concerning the composition 
and reactions of various sugars, especially in explaining 
the result of the action of dilute acids on cane sugar. 
He explained the levo-rotatory action of inverted sugar, 
and its rapidly varying power with the temperature, as 
the result of a molecule of water, in reacting with a mole¬ 
cule of cane sugar, generating one molecule of glucose 
and one of laevulose. Dubranfaut believed that inverted 
sugar consisted of a mixture of glucose and laevulose in 
equal weights; and although he did not make a direct 
analysis of the product, yet he was justly entitled to as¬ 
sume that it was so constituted, seeing that, generally, it 
agreed with a mean of the properties of inulin sugar and 
dextrose. 
In order to support the above view, he separated levo- 
glucose from the inverted sugar, through the insolubility 
of the lime compound, and compared its properties with 
pure laevulose. The decomposition -would, according to 
Dubranfaut, be as follows:— 
4 * — 
Ci 2 H 22 O u + h 2 o = c 6 h 12 o 6 + c 6 h 12 o 6 
"t* 73*8 -}- 56 —106 
(-25) 
So thoroughly had his facts and explanations been ac¬ 
cepted by chemists generally, that up to a recent date, no 
one had discovered any flaw in his researches, and there¬ 
fore no doubt was thrown on the validity of this theory. 
Recently, Maumene has reinvestigated the composition 
of inverted sugar by analysis. He has attempted to se¬ 
parate the two sugars through the action of chloride of 
sodium. The dextro-glucose forms a well-defined crys¬ 
talline compound with chloride of sodium, whereas the 
laevulose does not form any compound. The results ob¬ 
tained by this method differ greatly from theory. In¬ 
stead of finding 50 per cent, of laevulose, he found 88 per 
cent. In repeating the experiments of Dubranfaut on 
the separation of levo-glucose by hydrate of lime, he 
has not met with any better results; in fact, his results 
are quite opposed to those of Dubranfaut. 
Apart altogether from expressing an opinion on the 
merits of the views entertained by the different parties 
to this discussion, the author has thought some observa¬ 
tions of the same subject might not be unworthy of 
notice at the present time. 
Linneman, many years ago, applied the process of hy¬ 
drogenation to the sugars that he had found so success¬ 
ful in treating the simple organic substances. In the 
way named he obtained mannite from inverted sugar, 
the following reaction taking place: — 
C 6 Hi 2 0 6 + H 2 = C 6 H 14 0 6 . 
Mannite had long been known to be the product of cer¬ 
tain kinds of fermentation, and occurring as a secondary 
product in the vinous fermentation ; but it was this ele¬ 
gant synthesis of Linneman that first clearly showed the 
connection. But although inverted sugar can be changed 
into mannite, the next point that demands a solution is 
the proving the inverted sugar to be composed of equal 
quantities of dextrose and laevulose. Are they both 
transformed by hydrogenation into mannite ? or is only 
one of them, and which P Linneman seems to have 
directed his attention to the solution of this question. 
He states that it is only the laevulose that is so affected. 
The reasons why he entertains the above views are not 
given. In all likelihood he thought that, just as Berthelot 
had changed mannite by a peculiar fermentation into 
levo-glucose, so would the levo-glucose in inverted sugar 
be hydrogenized into mannite. 
In repeating the action of sodium amalgam on in¬ 
verted sugar, I have not seen any reason why the one 
sugar any more than the other should be supposed to 
generate the mannite. The following is a description of 
the mode by which the sugar was inverted and hydro¬ 
genized :—20 grammes of cane sugar were dissolved in 
150 grms. of water, and inverted through the action of 
2 grms. of sulphuric acid, keeping the solution at the 
temperature of 70° C., afterwards adding pure carbonate 
of barium, filtering, and then adding one gramme of 
sodium in the form of a weak amalgam. The action 
took place without any evolution of hydrogen. If the 
amalgam was impure from the presence of other metals, 
it evolved hydrogen at once, and the solution became 
