A NEW METHOD OF BUTTER ANALYSIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1949, 2 July 1891, Page 7

A NEW METHOD OF BUTTER ANALYSIS.

To be told that there is a prospeot of detecting tbepresence of 2 per cent, of foreign fat in batter, and that there is a new substance in butter hitherto undiscovered &y analysts, are

statements somewhat Btartling to chemists j and even a rumour that these things are so is likely to create a flutter in the dovecots of butter adulterators. At present 'small quantities of adulterants by common animal fat cannot be detected in commercial butter by the ordinary processes of examination. If the specimen analysed contains half and half of common fat and butter fat, the adulteration can be easily reoognised ; but if it contains much less of the adulterant, our present tests fail to ■eoure anything like an accurate determination of the amount of extraneous fata whioh has been introduced. If the foregoing be a statement of facts, the discovery will have an important bearing on the character of our butter supply; and it will further afford some explanation of the preference the human palate and stomach have for pure above adulterated butter.

The common view of the constitution of butter ib that, like other animal fats, itoonßistß mainly of oleine, palmatine, and stearine ; and that it differs from the oommon fats, inasmuch as it contains a small proportion of butyrio and othor glyoerides. Professor J, A. Wanklyn, in a paper recently read before the Society of Chemical Industry, Baid that 20 years ago he was of the [same opinion, but that since that time he had learnt better from actual original experiment. He maintained that butter is not a pure glyoeride; that in every 100 parts of butter fat 40 per cent, is something else ; that there is no palmitic acid in butter fat; that the, new substance does not belong to the oleine series; that, in faot, the aoids insoluble in water are neither oleic, palmitic, nor steario aoids ; and that more than half the fatty aoid produced from butter fat must be recognised as a new fatty aoid — alde-palmitio aoid, which contains two equivalents less of hydrogen than does palmitic acid itself. Furthermore, aldepalmitio aoid has peculiarities in presence of alcohol, and in general conduct and appearance, which are essentially different from palmitic asid, and which distinguish it and differentiate it in a remarkable degree from the latter substance.

All this iB intelligible to those acquainted with elementary chemistry, in relation to butter analysis. But Professor Wanklyn's deductions are based on experiments wbioh hav,e been performed by him, and whioh are only to be fully appreciated by students of what may be called the "higher chemistry" — as we speak of the " higher mathematics "" — and are for this reason unsuitable for a journal for ordinary readers. Moreover, it must be said that Mr Otto Hehner, in the discussion wbioh followed Professor Wanklyn's paper, confessed that he had " never known such Bfcarfcling deductions drawn from auoh Bmsllanalytioal results, especially by a man with a European reputation." Professor

Wanklyn retorted that " he had, for sufficient reason, kept back, for the present, all the details of bis investigations." Ordinary persons will think that " a man of European reputation " — the author, for instance, of what is known as " Wanklyn's Process of Water Analysis," and who has minutely studied the' question of palmitic, or no palmitic aoid, in butter for the laet 10 years— iß not likely to propound a new theory on incomplete evidence; nor yet to allow himself to fall into error from inefficient and crude methods of chemical analysis.

The means of detecting even 5 per cent. — not to say 2 per cent. — of foreign fat in butter will be a distinct gain to the publio, and to all manufacturers of the genuine article. There can be no reasonable objeotion to the Bale of butter compounds— or of butter substitutes of any kind— so long as they are Bold for what they really are. Indeed, the production of margarine, sold openly under its proper name, has been a boon to the very poor. None the less, the Bale, as pure butter, of an artiole wbioh may contain a large proportion of foreign fat within a limit unrecognisable by present analytical methods, is an injury to the honest butter-maker, and a fraud upon the consumer. It is therefore satisfactory to be told that a process has been discovered which, in the hands of our publio analysts, will greatly tend to check all butter adulteration, except wbere very Bmall quantities of extraneous matter are introduced. To the physiologist, Professor Wanklyn's discovery is of especial interest. It suggest* to him that possibly, to the presenoe of alde-palmitio acid in butter, is due its extremely palatable flavour and its greater digestibility. In which respect batter differs from other animal fats whioh contain palmitic aoid only.— Moboan Evans, in the Field.