SELECTED ARTICLES. 
35 
While we indulge the hope that instructions upon this sub- 
ject will be published, we are induced to believe we are occu- 
pied with a work of utility, by indicating the means to be put 
in practice to detect falsifications of this kind; it is our design 
to publish subsequently other articles upon sophistications not 
less dangerous, which have fallen under our observation. 
Means of detecting the sophistication of vinegar by 
sulphuric acid. 
This mode of adulteration can be traced back lo a period 
somewhat distant, and different methods have been pointed 
out in order to detect it; the best of these is based upon the 
employment of the solution of the muriate of baryta. It con- 
sists in pouring into the vinegar supposed to be falsified and 
diluted with water, a portion of this solution, which causes a 
yellowish flocculose precipitate, little abundant if the vinegar 
contains no sulphuric acid, and an abundant white granular 
precipitate, if the vinegar contains this acid.* 
The precipitate furnished by the sulphuric acid is weighty, 
it quickly falls down, is insoluble in water and in nitric acid, 
it is converted into the sulphuret of barium when heated with 
charcoal; this precipitate, collected on a filter and washed 
with boiling water, indicates by its weight the quantity of 
sulphuric acid requisite for its production, as it is known that 
100 parts of sulphate of baryta contain 33.6 of sulphuric acid 
and 66.1 of protoxide of barium. 
The following method may also be employed, although it 
takes more time; still it is preferable. Take 100 grammes of 
the vinegar to be tested, place it in a porcelain capsule, heat it 
moderately, so as to reduce by evaporation the liquid to an 
a greater degree of whiteness ! ! 2. that at the time of the cholera and since, 
mealy sub'stances obtained from cabbage and radish were substituted for 
mustard meal, for the purpose of revulsion. In these latter cases the fal- 
sifiers were without doubt ignorant that they were guilty of the crime of 
homicide. 
* A vinegar which contains only 1 part of sulphuric acid mixed with 99 
parts of vinegar, exhibits these characters in a marked degree. 
