BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 89 
Meanwhile, there are to-day many people who hold the supposed 
curative properties of malt extract in high esteem. -Indeed, it is 
a very remarkable fact that the use of malt extracts has taken on 
a new lease of life in recent years both in Europe and, more par- 
ticularly, perhaps, in this country, during the last twenty-five 
years. According to Fordred,* Mertens, in England, as early as 
1863, prepared in vacuum pans a product called solid wort for 
exportation to the colonies, there to be made into beer. Coleman f 
tells of a liquid resembling British porter, and labelled ‘‘ malt ex- 
tract,” that had been sent to England from Germany pretty 
freely during several years. But it appeared on analysis that this 
*¢ extract” contained 4% of alcohol, and was to all intents and 
purposes a kind of beer. It is of a similar product that the United 
States Dispensatory | remarks: ‘‘ Sometimes a very strong beer 
has been put upon the market under the name ‘extract of malt.” 
Several different methods of making malt extracts have been 
suggested by apothecaries in this country,§ but the officinal article 
as described in the United States Dispensatory, 1899, pp. 1507, 
1716, is prepared simply by macerating and digesting powdered 
malt with water at temperatures not exceeding 55° C., straining 
the mixture with strong expression and evaporating the strained 
liquor rapidly at a temperature not exceeding 55° C., either on a 
water bath or vacuum apparatus, to the consistence of thick 
honey. Improvements on this process consist in treating the 
malt with an alkaline solution to neutralize fatty acids, that might 
impart a bad taste to the product, and in pressing the extract in 
press-cloths to separate solid matters so completely that the extract 
shall be obtained as a clear liquid. ‘The remark is made incident- 
ally that a great deal of commercial extract of malt has been 
mixed with glucose ‘‘ to a surprising extent.” 
According to the United States Dispensatory, 1899, page 1717, 
a dry extract of malt has come into extensive use as an infant’s 
food. Itisin the form of a straw-colored coarse powder, made 
by drying the thick syrupy extract mixed with starchy matter. 
* Journal of the Society of Arts, London, 1876, 24, 185. 
+ London Chemical News, 1878, 37. 177. 
t Philadelphia, 1899, page 1716. 
§ For one of them see Cooley’s Cyclopedia of Practical Receipts, 7th edi- 
tion, London, 1892, 2. 1011. 
