Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1886. 
Saccharin. 
313 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  special  name  should  have  been  given 
when  the  substance  is  not  a  carbohydrate  but  a  nitrogenous  body, 
having  no  affinities  to  the  sugars  proper  save  in  the  peculiar  quality 
of  sweetness,  and  when  again  the  term  saccharin  has  already  been 
employed  by  Peligot2  to  designate  a  dextrogyrous  sugar  obtained  by 
the  prolonged  heating  of  a  solution  of  glucose  with  lime.  The  sac- 
charin prepared  by  Fahlberg  of  New  York  is  made  from  toluene,  a 
derivative  of  coal  tar,  and  has  the  formula  C6  H4       q  ^)  N  H  being 
anhydro-ortho-sulphamin-benzoic  ac'd,  or  benzoyl-sulphonic-imide. 
It  is  a  white  crystalline  substance,  difficultly  soluble  in  cold  water, 
more  easily  in  hot,  crystallizing  out  on  cooling  in  short,  thick  prisms, 
apparently  monoclinic.  According  to  Aducco  and  Mosso.  the  aqueous 
solution  is  strongly  acid.  Saccharin  melts  at  200°C,  partially  de- 
composing and  giving  off  the  smell  of  bitter  almonds. 
Even  when  the  amount  present  is  so  small  as  one  part  in  70,000  of 
water,  the  neutralized  solution  has  a  distinct  sweet  taste — as  sweet, 
that  is,  as  that  of  one  part  of  cane  or  beetroot  sugar  in  250  parts  of 
water;  so,  therefore,  saccharin  would  seem  to  possess  280  times  the 
sweetness  of  ordinary  sugar.  Alcohol,  ether,  and  glucose  are  good 
solvents,  and  it  is  precipitated  out  of  the  neutralized  solution  by  hy- 
drochloric acid.    Its  salts  also  possess  a  strongly  saccharine  taste. 
Aducco  and  Mosso,  studying  the  physiological  action  of  this  body, 
found  that  frogs  could  be  kept  for  days,  and  with  impunity,  in  a  neu- 
tralized watery  solution.  Dogs  also  exhibited  no  ill  effects  when 
saccharin  was  given  in  increasingly  large  quantities  up  to  5  grams 
daily  for  several  days.  The  body-weight  continued  unaltered.  The 
saccharin  was  discovered  unchanged  in  the  urine;  it  seems  to  undergo 
no  change  in  the  body.  It  does  not  influence  the  quantity  or  specific 
gravity  of  the  urine,  nor  does  it  cause  any  change  in  the  urea  and 
sulphuric  acid  excreted;  the  chlorides  are  slightly  increased.  The 
presence  of  saccharin  in  the  urine  delays  decomposition. 
Stutzer,  as  well  as  Aducco  and  Mosso,  obtained  similar  results 
in  the  human  subject,  5  grm.  daily  having  no  ill  effect,  passing 
away  by  the  kidneys  and  appearing  neither  in  the  saliva,  nor  in  the 
milk,  nor  in  the  faeces;  the  appetite  remained  unaffected.  Now  5 
grm.  of  saccharin,  it  must  be  noted,  are  equal  in  sweetening  power  to 
more  than  two  and  half  pounds  of  sugar. 
2  Peligot,  Comptes  Eendus,  T.  89,  p.  918;  T.  90.  p.  1141, 1879. 
