IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSOLIDATED FOOD TABLETS
Year: 1879

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William John Jones, of 10, Whitcomb Street, Pall Mall,
East, London, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
CONSOLIDATED FOOD TABLETS."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William John Jones at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st October 1879.
WILLIAM JOHN JONES, of 10, Whitcomb Street, Pall Mall, East, London.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSOLIDATED FOOD TABLETS."
I take decorticated lentils (Egyptian preferred) or other grain, and after cleansing,
picking, & grinding the same I submit the flour thereof to a heat of about 150°
(Fahrenheit) in order to destroy any organic germs, excessive moisture, or atmospheric
sporules that may be present. To effect this I use a convenient vessel with a closely
fitted cover, or I can use a vibrating furnace. In either case smoke must be excluded,
and the vessel large enough to allow the substance to be thoroughly agitated to
prevent scorching or drying to an excessive degree. The agitation must be kept
up some time after the vessel has left the fire. When the temperature has becomė
sufficiently low, which must be to the normal temperature, I take a proportion of
glucose with a defined proportion of glycerine of the highest specific gravity and
the most pure, and mix with the prepared flour. I also add a fixed proportion of
some of the essential oils, vegetable acids, or aromatic seeds as a flavouring and
colouring matters. I also apply the same process of manufacture to pea soup tablet,
pearl barley meal tablets, rice tablets, arrowroot tablets, and the flour of other
cereals and the legumenous grain, but instead of using the essential oils or aromatic
seeds and glycerine I mix suitable condiments, berbs, or flavourings with the same,
according to the purpose for which they are intended to be used. After thoroughly
mixing the whole together I make the same into cakes, and afterwards cut or mould
them into suitable proportions or sizes, and place them into fine rice flour for 12
hours in a drum, sieve, or other suitable vessel, and agitate them occasionally to
prevent adhesion, when they are fit for sale or use.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said William John Jones in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 17th April
1880.
WILLIAM JOHN JONES, of 10, Whitcomb Street, Pall Mall, East, London.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSOLIDATED FOOD TABLETS."
I take the flour of lentils or peas, and after drying the same as described in the
Provisional Specification I combine with every hundred pounds (avoirdupois)
twenty five per cent. of glucose; I also add one scruple and five grains of cyenne
pepper, one ounce and a quarter each of dryed and ground mint and celery seed,
and to every pound of the above aforesaid flour I add one ounce of common table
salt dryed and rolled fine. I also take the flour of wheat and barley, oatmeal, or
rice or maize, or the flour of any of the cereals or leguminous grain, which I treat
with the aforesaid proportion of glucose, and prepare from the same food tablets.
If the tablets consist of wheat flour I add twenty five per cent. of glucose to the
same after the flour has been treated as described in the aforesaid Provisional
Specification; I add half an ounce of common table salt dryed and rolled to each
lb. of the aforesaid flour. I mix and make the same into consolidated food
tablets, which would be known as "plain wheat tablets." I also vary the same by
adding flavourings by way of essential oils, vegetable acids, spices, condiments, and
colouring matters in certain defined degrees of flavour and colour, which may be
known as plain, mild, medium, and strong. I also add to each pound of flour half an
ounce of glycerine.
The same process and ingredients I apply to the flour of all the cereals and
leguminous grain, but I vary the flavourings and colouring matters in the different
meal. I use, as before stated, the aforesaid amount of cyenne pepper, celery seed,
and salt, and mint with lentils and pea flour, but I can omit the condiment and herbs,
and instead add from one to four drachms of either ground ginger or carraway
seeds, or I may flavour the same with from five to twenty minums of the following
essential oils:-Rose, lemon, cloves, anise, or any other essential oil that would be
appropriate for this or confectionery purposes.
The same may be applied to oatmeal, both plain, coloured, and flavoured; or the
oatmeal tablets may be varied with salt and glucose, viz., 1, an ounce of salt to a
pound of oatmeal and ½ pound of glucose.
"
Again, pearl barley may be made into tablets, coloured and flavoured as above
described in the oatmeal process. The plain tablets may have in the composition
half an ounce of salt to a pound of flour of the above pearl barley. The above amount
of glucose, with the addition of one to two drams of ground ginger, or nutmeg,
cinamon, or mixed spice, or instead of the above they may be flavoured with
essential oils, vegetable acids, and colouring matters may be added. To this com-
position I add half an ounce of Price's pure glycerine, which amount of glycerine
must be added to all tablets in which the essential oils, vegetable acids, or colouring
matters are used, and in those tablets in which carraway seeds or ginger are used
glycerine may or may not be used. The colouring may consist of from one dram
to four drams of the extract of cochineal or saffron, or any other simple vegetable
colour used by confectioners or for similar purposes in the above proportions.
The mode of mixing the ingredients is as follows:-All the dry constituents of
the tablets may be mixed with the various meals or flours of which they are to
form part; the fluid ingredients may be added to the glucose, that is to say, the
essential oils and glycerine may be worked up together and added to the glucose
and well incorporated, mix with flour or meal, knead as in making bread, and well
roll the same, and when well mixed divide into suitable proportions. If the tablet
is to be about two ounces make the divided mass into about half pounds, press into
the form of a cone in the hands, lay the same between two sheets of iron made to

page_text: fit a press, a copying press would do, and submit the same to the highest hand
pressure, and when taken from the press the outside proportions will have to be
added to the next mass and submitted to the press. When the pressed tablet is
taken from the press it is cut out with a punch and mallet, or a lever cutter, or any
other cutter having a suitable device may be used; but to facilitate the process the
plates may be sponged or brushed over with sweet oil or glycerine very slightly,
and the same flour or meal dredged over the same; this prevents adhesion to the
plates. The tablets may be immersed in the same flour of which they consist for
some hours to prevent their adhesion, and afterwards put up in boxes for sale; or
another method may be adopted, viz., wrap tin foil between the tablets and roll
the same in tin foil; this maintains their flavour and keeps them soft.
The colouring must be added to a small proportion of the flour or meal, and add
gradually, mixing thoroughly the remainder of the flour, and then submit to the
aforesaid drying process before mixing the ingredients.
This then is a defined and true statement of the process of my Invention, the
novelty of which consists in the ready portability for use or transit, and invaluable
in the hands of persons uninetiated in culinary art.
The novelty also presents itself in the preparation of tablets to be eaten in a raw
or proloplasmatic state, by which the vital force is imparted to the human organism
instead of being distroyed by the process of cooking.
By way of making sweetmeats for children much inducement to physical develop-
ment would be attained by the administration of larger quantities of the plastic
constituents, and to persons constitutionally weak.
Having now described the object and nature of my Invention, and the means for
carrying it into effect, what I wish to secure by the herein-before in part recited
Letters Patent is, the process of making compressed or consolidated food tablets in
the shape of cakes, biscuits, or lozengers from the flour of lentils, peas, oats, wheat,
rice, pearl barley, or maize, either finely or coarsely ground by the said process,
substantially as and for the purposes described and set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said William John Jones, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of April, One thousand eight hundred
and eighty.
Witness,
JAMES WOOLLEN.
WILLIAM JOHN JONES. (L.S.)