Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-06-10

| oftener than you like just tell or tele-
phone the grocer to send up a pound
OF MISUNDERSTANDING of perillaldehyde. If
he fills the bill you will find that this sim
gle pound will go far as a ton fcom-
mon sugar and is likely to last the family
some twenty years, by which time the price
Of sugar may have fallen to a reasonable
level.
Probably the grocer will say, as usual
that he is just out, but has something
lust as good. Which, as usual, will not be
true, because there is nothing just as goou'
or at lea&t none has yet been dlscoVereu,
~ ANYHOW been tasted. For, curlouely
onouph the above mentioned compound
whose name I shall not repeat since space
is short, was known ten years before any
body thought of tasting it, IL was lllsC
made in Germany in 1910 ana ouly an"
Ivzed and described. But chemists are not
in the habit of licking off their fingers
whenever they get something on them IN
the laboratory. II a freshman student mas
that propensity he gets cured OF 1t before
the end of the term without the teacheI
saying a word to him about it. SO 1t was
not until 1920 that a chemist, making the
aforesaid compound, found to his surprise
that it was sweet, and surprisingly sweet
at that. He was a Japanese named Furu-
kawa, and l don't know whether he 1ckeo
his fingers or not but If he did it was
luck lick, for he rushed off to the patent
office and got the stuff patented as a
sweetener 1t is made from the essential
oil of a plant known to the Japanese as
'shiso" and to botanists as "Perilla."
The Interesting thing about it from a
chemical standpoint is that it is not IN the
least like any of the natural sugars IN
structure although it Is composed Oh tne
same elements, attached to one announcer III
the same way arranged in sngnt!y
different position the resulting cohlpounu ID
not sweet at all.
Tho record for sweetness has hitherto
heen held by saccharin, which was mace
nv Ira Remsen, afterwards president VI
Johns Hopkins university, whle ne was
student 1t is a coal-tar derlVauVe' "n ~
also no relation Of the sugars, yet II IS
several hundred times sweeter than cane
sugar. Just how much sweeter depends
upon the degree Of dilution. IL the WateI
solution is strong one part or saccharlh
canals 200 parts Of sugar. If more water
il added the sugar solution loses its sweet
ness in proportion to the dilution, but the
saccharn holds out better, so that 1O0
times as much water can be added to the
saccharin solution to the sugar solution
before it ceases to taste sweet.
Dulcin. another coal-tar compound Is
ahont half as sweet saccharln, yet,
strange to say, the addition to sacchar1n Oh
only so per cent Of dulcin will nearly oou-
BILE its sweetness. A third coal-tar com
mound about a hundred times as sweet as
sugar goes under the name OF gIucln.
Another super-sweet was reported at the
recent meeting Of the American Chemical
Society by A w. DOx and Bruce Houston
of Detroit This is some 500 times sweeter
than sugar and is altogether unlike any OF
the other in structure. 1t contains chlorine
and is called 'hexyl-c hloro-malonamlde'
but If it is ever made marketable it must
be given a name that is less OF a mouth
full. slight change in the makeup OF It's
molecuIe produces a compound that is not
sweet but intensely bitter. The tongue Is
a good chemist. Yet having been trained
through thousands of years by the tasting
of fruits where sweetness usually means
wholesome nutritment, it is fooled by these
new compounds, which are much more
sweet, but not nutritious at all. Still they
have been found convenient for diabetes
who cannot digest sugar, and in case Of
war when sugar cost too much.
The discovery of these synthetic sweets
raises embarrassing questions in love and
literature In courtship nothing less than
superlatives will pass current and self
respecting maiden will feel flattered to be
called "honey" or told that she is Sweet
sugar" when she knows that there are
SMILES far sweeter. Many of our girls are
studying chemistry nowadays and know too
much to accept inferior substitutes in candy
or compliments. Chemical names do not
fit easily into verse, even when verse is
most free and freaky. But doubtless tab
loid trade form will be devised. such as
"saccharin," "dulcin" and "glusin." The
compound that l mentioned first, the Japa-
nese one, could be condensed to peri" or
'perilla." The former has already acquired
poet1cal connotation through Moore's peri
outside paradise, but the latter would fit
more neatly into valentine rhymes such as:
The rose is red, the violet blue,
Perillas sweet, and so are you.