510 
Adulteration  of  Beeswax. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Phakm. 
1     Nov  1, 1874. 
ADULTERATION  OF  BEESWAX*. 
By  Adolph  W.  Miller,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D. 
For  a  year  or  two  past  there  has  been  offered  in  this  market,  and 
most  probably  elsewhere,  an  article  termed  "refined  beeswax."  It  is 
unusually  handsome  in  appearance  and  is  generally  represented  as 
being  strictly  pure.  It  may  be  known  by  all  of  it  being  of  a  uniform 
bright-yellow  color,  entirely  free  from  the  sedimentary  stratum  of  im- 
purities ordinarily  found  in  country  wax.  Its  surface  is  clean  and 
glossy  having  no  foreign  particles  adhering  to  it.  On  account  of  these 
apparent  merits,  it  is  usually  sold  at  an  advance  on  the  price  of  the 
regular  article.  All  of  this  so-called  refined  beeswax,  so  far  met 
with,  had  been  moulded  into  the  shape  of  oblong  blocks  of  uniform 
size,  measuring  about  fourteen  inches  in  length,  eight  in  width  and 
three  in  thickness,  tapering  slightly  upwards,  and  weighing  about 
eight  pounds  on  an  average. 
The  melting  point  of  the  refined  wax  was  found  to  be  146°  F.,  that 
of  pure  wax  being  156°  and  that  of  paraffin  from  137°  to  140°.  Its 
specific  gravity  is  *929,  placing  it  again  intermediate  between  bees- 
wax, '963,  and  paraffin,  -871.  Being  thus  induced  to  suspect  the 
presence  of  the  latter  body,  100  grains  of  the  refined  article  were 
heated  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  with  one  ounce  of  sulphuric  acid 
to  about  350°  F.,  several  ounces  of  water  were  then  added  and  after 
cooling,  a  sheet  of  paraffin  weighing  80  grains  was  obtained,  the  loss 
representing  the  beeswax  which  had  been  carbonized  by  the  acid.  In 
order  to  verify  the  experiment,  it  was  repeated  with  a  composition  of 
four  parts  paraffin  to  one  of  wax,  when  analogous  results  were  obtained. 
100  grains  of  pure  paraffin,  treated  in  the  same  manner,  were  re- 
covered unchanged. 
All  the  best  test-books  recommend  fuming  Nordhausen  acid  for 
this  purpose,  and  state  that  an  allowance  must  be  made  for  a  portion 
of  paraffin  charred  by  this  acid.  No  one  seems  to  have  previously 
tried  the  ordinary  commercial  sulphuric  acid,  which  was  really  found 
to  be  better  adapted  than  the  Nordhausen,  as  all  the  wax  was 
carbonized  and  none  of  the  paraffin  affected. 
The  test  is  very  readily  applied,  the  only  difficulty,  and  this  a  very 
trivial  one,  being  the  separation  ofthe  carbonaceous  matter  from  the 
paraffin.    It  is  most  conveniently  removed  by  repeatedly  melting  the 
*Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  October  20. 
