6
6TH JULY 1894, Nos. 481, 481A, 481B, 481C, REVENUE.
willing to pay excise duty on the manufacture and possession of sonte soru, the composition of
which is kept a profound secret, and the Board of Revenue decided that the sale of the liquor,
without a proper license, and not the manufacture should be treated as penal ; but it does not
seem that any restrictions have been enforced at present. The Chemical Examiner at Madras
reported that these balls contained the starch of several kinds of grains as ragi, rice, &c., with
a few yeast cells ; he also suspected traces of a resin like that of cannabis (Indian Hemp).
Several sonte soru balls were sent to me by Mr. Hollingsworth of the Madras Medical
College. They were about the size of a plum, covered with a hard coating of flour, and weigh
-ing about 100 grains each. Inside were chaffy scales mixed with white starch like coarsely
powdered seeds or ground paddy. Examined under the microscope, the starch granules
appeared to be small and angular, like those of rice, and the branching mycelium of some
kind of fungus was present. The balls had a slight malt-like odour. A chemical examination
of the powdered balls revealed the presence of 9·2 per cent. of moisture and 28·4 per cent. of
mineral matter. The mineral matter or ash contained a large proportion of sand. A fat, a
brown saccharine substance of the nature of glucose, albumen, soluble salts and malt extract
were also present. No alkaloid or resin of Indian hemp was detected. The action of a body
allied to diastase was assured by digesting some of the powdered balls in water at a temperature
of 40°-42° C., adding solution of starch, and noting its gradual disappearance into sugar or
dextrin. The ferment named diastase was soluble in warm water, as it was removed from the
sonte soru by passing it through a paper filter, and the insoluble substance had no effect upon a
solution of starch. The insoluble substance, on the other hand, contained an organism, which,
like yeast, induced alcoholic fermentation in a solution of sugar, and the mixture of the powder
with sugar and warm water yielded a spirituous liquor, and disengaged bubbles of carbonic
acid gas. As diastase is found in germinating grains, the process of malting must have been
known to the makers of the sonte soru balls, and the paddy and whatever other seeds may have
been mixed with it must have spouted before being used. The inhabitants of the Naga hills
prepare a beer from rice by a simple process of fermentation ; in Sikkim murowa, an intoxicat
- i n g l i q u o r , i s p r e p a r e d f r o m s e v e r a l s p e c i e s o f m i l l e t , a n d i n J a p a n a b e e r i s b r e w e d f r o m r i c e
and a fermenting body called " koji." The koji is thus prepared :—Washed rice is soaked in
water till soft, it is then steamed for some hours, until the starch has gelatinized. When
luke-warm, the mass is sprinkled with spores of the fungus Eurotium oryzœ. The grains are
then well mixed and exposed in trays, until in about three days the mass is cemented together
by the silky filaments of the mycelium and forms the koji, which is used instead of malt in the
brewing process. The koji of Japan, like the sonte soru of Southern India, contains principles,
such as are found in malt, as diastase and sugar. Professor Atkinson of Tokio in 1880 found in
koji a soluble ferment, and named it eurotin, as he seemed. to think that it formed different
products with starch to those formed by diastase, and the ferment cells were a little less in size
than those of beer yeast. There is no doubt that spirit can be produced by such means as
malted grains made up in the primitive form just described, but the spirit is not generated in
such a large proportion as when it is made by the mashing operations conducted with modern
appliances in breweries.
Beans from Burma.—In 1891, Dr. A. E. Grant sent some beans from Kanhow in Upper
Burma for analysis to see if they contained any powerful alkaloid, which was suspected to be
present. The white beans were about an inch long, cylindrical in shape and smooth. They
belong to some species of Canavalia, a plant belonging to the natural order Leguminosœ.
The seeds of some of these plants are eaten as food by the natives ; for instance, the Sword
Bean growing on the Coromandel Coast, while others, as the seeds of C. obtusifolia of Australia
are poisonous. Some of these poisonous seeds are used for food, after being cooked, as the
heat employed in roasting, or the boiling water, removes the toxic property. As the beans
were botanically allied to the ordeal bean of Africa (Physostigma venenosum), search was made
for an alkaloid, such as Physostigmine, but with negative results. An alcoholic extract also
had no action upon the eye, and a portion examined by Dr. Browning, Surgeon to His
Excellency the Governor of Madras, was found to have no poisonous effects when injected
hypodermically into a dog's leg. The seeds consumed in the chemical examination were not the
original seeds from Burma, but were obtained from the plants grown at Burliar. It may be
that the difference in climate and elevation had produced some change in the constituents,
as cultivated vegetables sometimes are harmless when compared with their virulent properties
developed in natural growth. For instance, the analysis of these Canavalia seeds showed a
composition possessed by certain peas and beans, classified under the name of pulse. Follow
-ing is the analysis :—
Fat
1·40
Albuminoids
20·00
Starch
53·34
Fibre
7·67
Ash—
3·26
Moieture
14·33
100·00