TAR-SUGAR.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4551, 23 November 1887, Page 3

TAR-SUGAR.

The London correspondent of the Argus recently mentioned, in a cable message, that a large factory had been established at Madgeburg, in Germany, for the purpose of making saccharine matter from coal tar, the article produced being 300 times sweeter than sugar. With regard to this new product, a correspondent of the London periodical Light, Heat, and Power, gives some interesting details. After giving the story of the discovery of saccharine by aGerman chemist -Fahlberg at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., he says that while it took a long time and much hard study to learn the philosophy of its production, it has taken eight years to reduce the manufacture of it to a commercial basis. It was formerly supposed that the physical quality of sweet-1 ness was typified by the carbo-hydrates ; that is, the sugars and those starches which, by chemical treatment, are brought into the group. But Fahlberg’s discovery does away with this old standard practically and scientifically. It is 230 times sweeter than the sweetest cane sugar, equal to unity. What is more extroordinary, it differs wholly in principle from all the carbo-hydrate group ; thafcis, from all other known sugars, in not being susceptible to fermentation. Every housewife knows how preserved fruit mildews, how jam moulds, and how yeast ferments and spoils. All these operations are the result of the action of organisms feeding on the sugar, heretofore an inseparable feature of all sweetening processes. But you cannot produce fermentation in saccharine. On the contrary, it is a powerful preservative —a quality it possesses in common with all the coal tar products. Of this the correspondent says ho had some curious illustrations from the samples Mr Salmon had brought with him from Magdeburg. There were strawberries, for instance, put up over a year ago, which had never been cooked, and which preserved absolutely their flavour ' of the garden. Another novel and interesting quality of this new product is that it is strictly antidiabetic. German physicians are making much of this phase of the discovery,and there has already been established an independent factory for the manufacture of antidiabetic biscuits for

the use of the large class of patients to whom all sweetening has heretofore been forbidden. On this point the correspondent says there seems to be no doubt. He was shown copies of the declarations of Professors Leyden of the Berlin Univer. sity ; Stadelmann of the Heidelburg University; Stutger of Bonn ; and Mosso and Aducco, of Turin, all made upon personal analysis, and all highly commending the discovery as a gain not only to commerce but to medical science. Professor Sir Henry Roacoe, in a lecture before the Royal Institute in London, has already described the new compound as “ the most remarkable of the many remarkable products of coal tar.’V An immense factory with the best machinery and appliances was started in Magdeburg, Germany, inPebruary, employing between 200 and 300 workmen to manufacture saccharine, with a capital of nearly £200,000. The correspondent says “ that of course the principal idea of the introduction of saccharine, so far as America’s sugar trade goes, is that by combination with glucose a sugar can be made which lyill drive cane sugar to the wall.” _ According to this authority, it is a mistake to call “ saccharine ” either an adulteration or an unworthy chemical trick. It is a great scientific development, an honest product, possessing marvellous properties. None of these, it is asserted, are injurious whil some are in the highest degree valuable. The coal tar to be used in the Magdeburg factory comes from England, which country produces many thousands of tons of this product ,of gas making.