196 
Salicylic  Acid  in  Food. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  1894. 
the  experiments  just  cited.  The  woody  tissue  of  the  canned  vege- 
tables may  have  caused  an  action  similar  to  this. 
We  also  use  the  ordinary  "  shaking  out "  method  in  the  Depart- 
ment laboratory  to  some  extent  for  such  goods  as  beers  and  wines. 
The  beer  or  wine  is  extracted  with  about  half  its  volume  of  ether 
and  the  extract  evaporated  to  dryness,  and  the  residue  taken  up 
with  warm  water.  The  resultant  solution  is  tested  in  the  usual 
way  with  iron  chloride.  Between  the  two  processes  of  separating 
the  salicylic  acid,  distillation  or  shaking  out  with  ether,  I  do  not 
believe  there  is  much  choice,  though  the  former  is  cheaper  and  more 
expeditious.  The  increased  purity  and  sharpness  of  the  reaction 
given  by  the  distillate  as  compared  with  that  given  by  the  residue 
from  the  ether  extract  about  counterbalance  the  fact  that  only  a 
fraction  of  the  salicylic  acid  appears  in  the  distillate.  Objections 
against  the  distillation  process  were  raised  in  1889  by  certain  Dutch 
chemists,  on  the  ground  that  in  the  process  of  fermentation  certain 
"  phenol-like  bodies  "  were  sometimes  formed  which  interfered  with 
the  reaction.  "  Phenol-like  bodies  "  would  interfere  not  only  with 
the  distillation  separation  but  with  any  other  with  which  I  am 
acquainted,  since  phenol  is  taken  up  by  immiscible  solvents  from 
acid  solutions  precisely  as  is  salicylic  acid. 
This  year  three  chemists,  writing  for  different  German  brewing 
papers,  have  claimed  that  in  what  is  called  "  color  "  or  "  caramel " 
malt  a  substance  exists  which  gives  all  the  ordinary  salicylic  acid 
reactions.  The  substance  is  said  to  exist  in  many  malt  extracts 
rich  in  isomaltose.  J.  Brand  isolated  the  substance  from  color  malt 
and  describes  all  its  reactions  as  being  analogous  to  those  of  sali- 
cylic acid,  with  the  single  exception  of  that  with  Millon's  reagent 
with  which  the  new  substance  gave  no  reaction.  I  procured  a  set 
of  color  and  caramel  malts  from  the  World's  Fair  and  tried  to 
obtain  a  salicylic  acid  reaction  from  them,  but  could  not  do  so.  At 
my  request  Mr.  Bigelow,  who  not  long  ago  examined  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  beers  exhibited  at  the  World's  Fair,  tried  a  large  number 
of  them  with  Millon's  reagent,  using  it  side  by  side  with  the  iron 
solution.  He  reported  to  me  that  the  Millon's  reagent  gave  salicylic 
acid  in  all  the  samples,  irrespective  of  the  reaction  upon  the  ferric 
chloride.  The  latter  gave  salicylic  acid  in  comparatively  few.  It 
is  only  just  to  say,  however,  that  where  ferric  chloride  indicated  the 
presence  of  salicylic  acid,  the  reaction  given  by  Millon's  reagent 
was  much  brighter  than  where  this  was  not  the  case. 
