88 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
acid hydrolysis. As a matter of course the present American 
‘method of procedure is better and cheaper in so far as concerns 
the United States, with its cheap and abundant crops of Indian 
corn; but rice and millet also are cheap grains that could doubt- 
less readily be ‘* converted” by the acid treatment, and maize ‘is 
readily grown in eastern countries. Still, on taking everything 
into the account, it may well be true that the Japanese, in respect 
to glucose making, have already arrived at a point of supreme 
excellence as regards their own conditions and circumstances. 
It may be remarked in passing of the glucose and ‘‘ grape 
sugar”? (starch sugar) that are prepared nowadays by thousands 
of tons in the United States, that they are for the most part pro- 
ducts of a high degree of purity. Though sulphuric acid is still 
used in some factories, as the hydrolyzing agent, hydrochloric 
acid has replaced sulphuric in most establishments. When the 
conversion of the starch is completed the acid is neutralized with 
sodium carbonate so that only sodium chloride (common salt) is 
formed; the quantity of acid necessary for conversion is so small 
that the salt in the product may amount to no more than 0.2 to 
0.25%, and the finished glucose may contain no more than 0.4% 
of total inorganic matter. 
It is noticeable that our forebears, like the Japanese of the 
present time, flattered themselves that their barley sugars, ptisanes, 
and orgeats, possessed curative properties, and it must be admitted 
that there may have been some justice in the idea at a time when 
the dietaries in common use contained very little sugar. Many 
an invalid or feeble person may have profited by the occasional 
addition of palatable saccharine matter to food that was coarse 
and repugnant. Marchant} has called attention to the fact that 
‘¢ Medicated ales make a large article in the old English dispensa- 
tories” ... ‘* We meet in some dispensatories with syrup of ale 
made by boiling that liquor to a consistence; this is used against 
obstructions in the kidneys, etc., etc.” But with the advent of 
cane sugar it became customary to attribute equal or even greater 
therapeutic virtues to this substance * — not to mention opposing 
views which have at times been intemperately expressed. 
* W. T. Marchant, ‘‘In Praise of Ale,” London, 1888, page 44. 
+ Compare, for example, Benjamin Moseley, M.D., A Treatise on Sugar, 
London, 1800, passim. 
