The Press. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1901. ARSENIC IN SUGAR.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10862, 11 January 1901, Page 4

The Press. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1901. ARSENIC IN SUGAR.

As indic.itsd in our cable messages, a profound sensation wa_ -caused a few weeks ago by the epidemic of poisoning ca.es in

tha North of England,' apparently tha result of drinking beer contaminated by Borne poisonous m:.tor. Many hundreds of cases were rcp.rt.d, and the extent to which the mi.-.-hief spread may be gauged from the fact that in one workhouse infirmary alone in -.lar.ch_-.tc-r there were ninety-eight persons at one time suffering from peripheral neuritji.—the nam? by which doctors

dignify the exceedingly painful and dangerous disease which they pronounced in these cases to be the result of arsenical poisoning. It is only fair to add that although in the majority of instances the sufferers were b.er drinker., yet several of ths cases reported at Leicester oceuired among petq.le who chiefly drunk tea and cocoa. It was suggested that sugar contaminated with arsenic wa. the cause of the trouble 'in both clas.es of patients —the sugar used in brewing the beer, and the sugar used in sweetening" the tea and cocoa. Sugar, it may be explained, is the only substitute for malt allowed ia Great Britain, and the quantities and conditions are prescribed by law. Ordinary cane sugar in its natural state is found to be unsuitable for

brewing purposes, and the practice, therefore, is to use either what is known as "invert sugar" or "glucose." The former is low cane sugar, converted into grape eugar by treatment with sulphuric acid, and hi the latter a. similar chemical result is produced by the action of sulphuric acid on maize starch. It is a popular fallacy that good beer can only be brewed from malt alone. A distinguished brewing expert, in giving evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, once said that if the Malt Acts were not in the way numerous substitutes for malt could be used, and that among those mangel-wurtzel might be used to any extent, and he went on to say— "I have tasted as good beer from that alone "as any home-brewed beer I have ever tasted "in my life." Th© writer of the article on brewing in the "Encyclopeedia Britannica" says:—"lt does not appear that the best " judge can, from the taste alone, dis- " tinguish between a beer made from malt " and one brewed from a mixture of melt, •' and sugar. This is not surprising when '" it is borne in mind that brewing from " malt consists in subjecting the malt to " those conditions which are most favourable " to the conversion of the maximum quantity " of the starch it contains into grape sugar " by the action of the diastase produced in " the grain by the process of malting." It is, indeed, one of the marvels of chemical science that by acting on any kind of starch with sulphuric acid a. form of sugar is obtained identical in composition with that produced by -the action of the vegetable ferment known i__ diastase upon the starch of barley.

For at least thirty or forty years sugar of the kind we have described has been used in brewing, without any ill-effects being produced. The mischief in the present instance seems to have been brought about by tbe fact that a firm of manufacturers of brewing sugar, who supplied about 200 breweries in the North of England and the Midlands, Lad been using sulphuric acid which contained arsenic—an impurity which is not infrequently found in the lower grades of sulphuric acid used in commerce. Of course, in the manufacture of any kind of substance employed for food, ordn*£ry sulphuric acid should not have been used, but the makers should have satisfied themselves that the acid they employed was chemically pure. After the terrible warning which has now been conveyed, it is quite safe to assume that the utmost care'will be taken in this respect in future. Tho "British Medical Journal" states that the traders now concerned showed a most proper spirit in offering every facility for the investigation, and in promptly incurring great pecuniary loss both from the stopping of the sale of products open to suspicion aud from warning brewers against the use of their own glucose. For their own sakes, considering the very serious risks they ran in supplying an artiSte dingerou- to hwikh, wa may raly upon it*.

tbat they will be extremely careful in future. The Manchester coroner issued a statement warning beer-sellers that if after what had taken place they continued to sell beer containing arsenic, and a death resulted from it, he should not hesitate to tell a jury that they must consider whether or not it amounted to criminal negligence. Fortunately, an analysis for arsenic is a very

eimple matter, and we may take it for granted that no brewer will in future use either saccharine or glucose without firsthaving it tested by a competent chemist. It would, no doubt, also be well if manufacturers of sweetmeats and preserves in which glucose is used were to adopt a similar precaution.