Ajaum"y  1913™"}       Candy— Cheap  and  Expensive.  13 
CANDY— CHEAP  AND  EXPENSIVE  1 
By  Charles  H.  La  Wall. 
Chemist  to  the  Pennsylvania  State  Dairy  and  Food  Department. 
The  word  "  candy  "  is  derived  from  the  Orientals  by  whom 
sweetmeats  and  sugar  have  been  used  from  the  earliest  times.  The 
Hindustan  Khcmd  and  the  Arabic  quand,  as  well  as  words  of  similar 
sound  in  other  Eastern  languages,  signifies  "  sugar,"  and  are  trace- 
able to  the  Sanskrit  word  Khanda,  meaning  a  portion  or  piece.  The 
definition  of  candy  in  its  strictest  sense  limits  it  to  "  any  confection 
having  sugar  as  its  basis,  however  prepared." 
The  word  "  confectionery,"  a  broader  term  applied  frequently  to 
candy  is  from  the  Latin,  conUccre,  to  compound,  and  really  embraces 
all  food  preparations  of  the  nature  of  sweetmeats,  pastry,  etc.,  which 
have  sugar  as  a  basis  or  for  the  principal  ingredient. 
As  the  Oriental  origin  of  the  word  indicates  candy  is  an  ancient 
food  product  and  its  early  use  by  Eastern  peoples  points  to  an  intui- 
tive knowledge  of  the  value  and  necessity  of  the  carbohydrates  as 
food  stuffs.  In  the  early  days  of  the  use  of  candy  by  European 
nations,  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  sweetmeats  was  exclusively 
carried  on  by  drug-gists,  who,  we  find  in  the  year  1581  in  Nurem- 
burg,  entered  a  protest  against  the  encroachment  upon  their  rights 
by  other  persons  engaged  in  trade  in  a  resolution  containing  the 
following : 
"  May  it  please  the  Honorable  Council  to  lend  ear  to  our  complaints 
and  in  conformity  therewith  to  see  fit,  in  such  a  manner,  to  protect  our 
interests,  that  henceforth  we  shall  not  be  unduly  oppressed  by  the  physicians, 
and  that  each  of  us  shall  be  enabled  to  enjoy  the  just  results  of  his  labors. 
The  following,  Honorable  Sirs,  forms  the  substance  of  our  complaint : 
1.  The  sale  of  all  confections,  formerly  dispensed  by  us,  has  now  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  sugar  dealer,"  etc. 
It  was  manifestly  impossible,  of  course,  for  pharmacists  to  con- 
trol such  a  rapidly  developing  business  and  we  find  it  carried  on  at 
present  in  an  entirely  separate  manner,  except  for  the  fact  that  many- 
druggists  carry  candy  manufactured  by  others,  as  a  side  line,  con- 
fining their  manufacturing  operations  to  such  medicated  confections 
as  still  survive  in  the  materia  medica  of  the  present. 
1  Presented  at  the  American  Food  Exposition,  New  York,  October  28, 
1912. 
