Huntsville gazette., 1882-06-10
How Sugars are Adulterated.

At the quarterly meeting of the State
Board of Health the Sanitary Commit
tee, through Prof. Chandler, submitted
supplementary report on sugar by AL
bert L. Colby, of this city. After re-
viewing the work of others in this
branch of analytical research, and
enumerating the adulterants, organic
and inorganic, detected, to wit: Glu-
cose, potato and other starches, flour,
dextrine, vegetable albumen, blood,
fragments of sugar cane, woody fiber,
sporules and filaments of fungi, acarus
sacohari or sugar mite, sand, particles
of stone and grit, chalk, marble-dust,
pine clay, terra alba, gypsum, plaster of
paris, bone dust, lead, iron, lime, chlo-
ride of lime, common salt, etc. Prof.
Chandler and Mr.. Colby show that the
sugars now in the market are generally
free from this long list of insoluble and
mineral matters alleged to be used in
former times, and that, owing to the
improvements in the processes of refin-
ing and publication and the absence of
raw sugars from the retail trade, most
of the organic impurities previously de-
tected are now removed, and that the
sugar mite is seldom seen.
The sugars of to-day are, however,
subject to adulteration by the addition
of starch or grape sugar to the cane
sugar, and by the bleaching of the
brown sugars by the use of tin salts.
One hundred and seven carefully-se-
lected samples of sugar procured in
New York City showed results as fol-
lows: Thirty-one were microscopically
clean, forty eight slightly contaminated
with dust, twenty-five contained consid-
cradle dirt, and six were very dirty.
Forty-one samples of white sugar were
all found to be pure, and in the sixty-six
samples of brown sugars, three were
adulterated to very large extent with
glucose, and four showed the presence
of tin.
The method of examination for deter
mining the presence and quantity of
artificial grape or starch sugar in cane
sugar is that known as the hot polari-
zation methods, devised by Drs. Chan
dler and Richetts, depending upon the
following well-known facts, some of
them probably quite new to most read
ers:
!. Dextrose, under the conditions of
analysis, exerts constant effect upon
the plane of polarized light at all tenn
peratures under 100 deg. c..
2. Levulose. The action of leyulose
is not constant, the amount of rotation
to the left being diminished as the tenn
perature increased.
8. "Invert' sugar, being a mixture
of one-half dextrose and one-half levu-
lose, does hot effect the plane of polar
lied light at certain temperature some
where near 80 deg. c.
4. Cane sugar, when acted on by
dilute acids. is converted into ssinvert
sugar." while dextrose is practically
unaltered.
Hence if "mixed sugar" is heated
with dilute acids, the cane sugar present
is converted into invert sugar, which,
with that originally present (Which is
due to process of manufacturer, is op-
tically inactive at certain temperature
(near 80 degrees C.), while the artificial
dextrose, preserving its specific rotary
affect, will at this temperature show a
deviation to the right in proportion to
the amount present.
Mr.. Colby's paper on sugar contained
much valuable information on the pres
ent state of the sugar market, and will
be published in full in the annual re-
port on food and drugs.-N. z. Mall.