ON  HONEY,  ITS  FORMATION  AND  CHANGES. 
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ON  HONEY,  ITS  FORMATION  AND  CHANGES. 
By  W.  W.  Stoddart,  F.G.S. 
Honey  and  wax,  the  produce  of  the  well-known  insect  (Apis 
mellifica),  have  been  household  words  with  the  apothecary  from 
time  immemorial.  That  they  are  of  importance  to  the  modern 
pharmaceutist  is  evident  from  their  being  essential  ingredients 
in  no  less  than  twenty-six  preparations  of  our  Pharmacopoeia,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  "  thousand  and  one  '?  uses  in  domestic  life. 
The  consumption  in  England  is  something  enormous  ;  besides 
what  is  gathered  in  this  country,  more  than  450  tons  are  annually 
imported.  It,  then,  becomes  of  some  importance  to  the  dispen- 
ser that  he  has  a  good  and  pure  article,  which  I  am  sorry  to  say 
is  not  always  the  case.  It  is  bad  enough  that  a  dishonest 
tradesman  can  find  a  cheap  and  adulterated  stock  ready  at  hand, 
but  it  is  far  worse  when  an  honest  tradesman  has  to  keep  all  his 
wits  about  him  to  prevent  the  unconscious  reception  of  a  spurious 
substance. 
For  several  years  past  the  author  has  paid  attention  to  the 
natural  history  and  chemistry  of  honey,  and  has  already  pub- 
lished a  few  observations.  As  little  is  known  on  the  subject,  a 
continuance  and  confirmation  of  them  will  perhaps  be  thought 
worth  recording. 
On  turning  over  the  works  on  honey,  you  will  find  that  not 
only  do  the  authors  contradict  each  other,  but  even  sometimes 
themselves.  Fownes,  Turner,  Gregory,  and  others  state  "  that 
the  solid  part  of  honey  is  grape  sugar,"  but  tell  us  nothing  of 
the  liquid.  Johnstone,  in  his  "  Chemistry  of  Common  Life," 
says,  "  Both  the  solid  and  liquid  portions  have  the  same  general 
properties,  and  that  both  are  equally  sweet."  Dr.  Hassall,  in 
his  work  on  "Food  and  its  Adulterations,"  says  "  that  the  solid 
part  of  honey,  when  examined,  shows  myriads  of  regularly-formed 
crystals,  identical  in  form  with  cane  sugar."  This  probably  is 
a  misprint.  The  best  account,  though  a  brief  one,  is  that  in  Dr. 
Attfield's  "  Pharmaceutical  Chemistry." 
The  author's  experiments  serve  to  show  that  there  are  three 
principal  sugars  in  the  honey  of  the  shops,  varying  their  propor- 
tion according  to  age  ;  and,  as  will  be  noticed  further  on,  that 
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