DETECTION OP ADULTERATION IN CHOCOLATE. 
165 
ART. XXI. — DETECTION OF ADULTERATION IN 
CHOCOLATE. 
Some have asserted that the addition of fecula in the cho- 
colate of commerce cannot be detected by reagents ; basing 
their opinion upon the assertion of M. Dalh, professor in the 
University of Koenigsberg, that 100 parts of cocoa contain 
10.91 of amidine or fecula ; but it has been proved by the 
researches of M. Delcher, pharmaceutist of Castillon, that 
cocoa does not contain an amilaceous principle. 
A commission appointed by the Board of Health of Paris 
have made some experiments upon this point, and it results 
from their trials that the most easy mode of ascertaining 
whether chocolate contains farina or fecula, consists in treating 
four grammes of chocolate by 250 grammes of boiling water, 
filtering the liquid, and adding to the clear liquor an alcoholic 
tincture of iodine ; this tincture will give a yellowish brown 
color with the decoction obtained from chocolate without 
fecula, whilst it will afford a blue color, more or less deep, 
according to the quantity of fecula present. 
The members of the commission caused to be prepared by 
a manufacturer six specimens of chocolate. 
The 1st. contained in each pound 16 gram, of fecula 
" 2d. 16 " of farina 
" 3d. 32 " of fecula 
" 4th. 32 " of farina 
" 5th. 64 " of fecula 
" 6th. 64 " of farina 
They experimented upon these specimens, and distinguished 
that the blue color obtained by the tincture of iodine in the 
decoctions from the two first, was modified in that which con- 
tained fecula by the yellowish brown color of the chocolate, 
which did not happen in that containing farina ; that from the 
the other four, an intense blue color was obtained, but more 
intense in the fifth and sixth specimens. 
Chocolate fully ground, presents, when placed in the moulds, 
in winter, a clean and brilliant fracture ; on the contrary, in 
summer, the fracture, under the same circumstances, is uneven 
