The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-18

From the Pharmaceutical Era.
| Soda water, in its present form, has not
been recognized as healthful beverage
much longer than the life of the we'll pre-
served man of four score. Its real his
| tory from the point of view of the foun-
tain owner and operator, and the his
| torian, can be covered within the scope of
so years, while the greatest development
and most remarkable changes in the soda
water and soda fountain industry have
been brought about during the past quar-
| ter century.
| The soda fountain-which has made soda
| water, in the modern sense, possible--oc-
cupies distinctive and unique position
| in the history of the worlds industry. Ac-
cording to l.. A. Becker, who writes on
the subject in the Pharmaceutical Era, it
is an American invention, and, perfected
by American skill and pushed by Ameri-
can enterprise, it has become an Amer
ioan institution, national in scope and
character, yet one which has followed the
flag into the far east, and has become
peaceful invader of Mexico, the Do
minion of Canada. England and the con-
tinent.
and sundae would not be possible, was
known to Paracelsus in the early part of
the sixteenth century-about 1520-and was
further Investigated by Van Helmont, the
Belgian chemist, about 100 years later.
To designate it the latter coined the
word gas, the term now commonly
used by dispensers and fountain operators
in designating the carbon dioxide which
puts the sparkle and the fizz into soda
water, or, more properly speaking, into
carbonated water. The name soda
comes from its first method of produce
ton.
In 175o, Gabriel venel, a French physi-
clan, mixed two drains of soda and mar
BILE (muriatic) acid in a pint of water
contained in an ordinary glass bottle.
Twenty years later-in 1770-Bergman, a
Swedish chemist, generated carbonic acid
gas from chalk by the use of sulphuric
acid, and invented generating apparatus
which made its production on a compara-
lively large scale possible.
But all this was merely preliminary. In
1867, just a few years prior to the Amer
ican revolution and five years antedating
the perfection of the steam engine by
Watt, DR.. Joseph Priestley, at Leeds,
England, made the first drinkable glass OF
soda water. 1t was prepared by pouring
water briskly back and forth between two
goblets held in layer of carbon dioxide
on the top of a fermenting mash in
brewery vat,
Although it is to an English scientist
and Ewedish chemist that the recogni-
ton of carbonic acid gas and perfection
of methods of producing it are due, 1t
remained for an American to invent and
perfect a distinctive type of apparatus
the soda fountain-to prepare, chill and
dispense carbonated water, and at the
same time provide the mechanical med
ium for mixing in palatable form the
syrups, favors and fruits used in con-
junction with carponated water to produce
what is known A soda water" 1t is a
far cry, indeed. from the murky glass of
carbonated water resulting from Dr.
Priestleys manipuations in the fumes of
a brewery vat to the beverage, which by
virtue of its popularity, as sattested by
an enormous consumption, holds firmly
to the honor title of ''the great American
beverage