Am.  Jour.  Pharm.) 
Oct.,  1885.  I 
Commercial  Spanish  Saffron. 
49S 
Bentley  and  Trimen,  the  admixture  of  fibres  of  shredded  beef  is  a 
common  adulterant  in  Italy.  The  best  means  for  detecting  this  adul- 
teration is,  without  doubt,  the  microscope,  which  reveals  the  transverse 
striae  of  metit  fibres.  The  odor  of  burning  meat  differs  materially 
from  that  of  burning  vegetable  matter,  and  has  been  recommended  {is 
the  principal  test  by  most  authors,  even  as  late  as  1865  by  Marquart  • 
but  on  experimenting  with  a  few  shreds  only  it  may  be  misleading  ; 
it  certainly  should  be  regarded  merely  as  a  preliminary  test,  and  the 
most  reliable  one,  the  microscope,  is  very  properly  insisted  upon  by 
careful  modern  writers. 
The  corolla  tubes  observed  by  me  were  dyed  in  one  case  with  red 
Saunders,  in  the  others  with  Brazil  wood.  The  frequency  of  this  adul- 
teration and  its  close  resemblance  to  saffron  suggested  the  probability 
of  its  having  been  overlooked  in  samples  examined  before;  but  those 
saffrons — many  of  them  adulterated — which  I  had  procured  between 
1866  and  1876  were  entirely  free  from  the  tubes;  it  is  possible  that 
this  sophistication  is  only  occasionally  used,  or  merely  for  certain  cheap 
grades. 
The  petals  of  pomegranate,  cut  and  twisted,  were  mentioned  by 
Fee,  Geiger,  and  by  Dulk,  and  since  their  time  by  others,  as  being 
used  for  adulterating  saffron,  for  which  their  crimson  and  after  drying 
brownish  purple  color  render  them  fit  to  a  certain  extent ;  but  they 
contain  tannin,  giving  with  ferric  salt  a  blue-black  color,  which  was 
in  no  case  observed  with  the  corolla  shreds  taken  from  the  samples 
under  consideration.  The  petals  of  Saponaria,  mentioned  by  some 
authors  as  adulterants,  are  almost  white,  and,  to  be  used  as  an  admixture 
to  saffron,  must  therefore  be  dyed  ;  seen  under  the  microscope,  they  are 
nearly  opaque,  or  merely  translucent,  while  the  corolla  shreds — dyed 
and  undyed — noticed  by  me  were  almost  transparent,  and  their  deli- 
cate structure  was  observed  to  be  identical  with  shreds  still  attached  to 
some  of  the  filaments  of  crocus  stamens,  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  their  origin. 
From  the  above  it  would  seem  as  if  for  some  commercial  grades  of 
saffron  the  entire  crocus  flower  was  utilized,  though  not  in  the  condi- 
tion suggested  by  Monthus,  in  1867  (''Jour.  Phar.  Chim.,'^  4th  ser., 
vi,  54),  who  recommended  to  simply  dry  the  flowers,  which  he  regarded 
as  possessing  the  same  medicinal  properties  as  the  stigma;  he  also 
states  that  acids  color  tlie  flowers  red,  and  ammonia  green.  Applied 
to  calendula  florets,  acids  render  the  yellow  color  lighter,  but  ammonia 
