The Funny Side of Physic Part 81

Brown sugar changes under atmospheric influences, and loses its sweetness.

This change is attributed to the lime it contains. The best grade of brown sugar is nearly dry, of yellowish color, and emits less odor than the lower grades. It consists of cane sugar, vegetable and gummy matter, tannic acid, and lime. Put your hand into a barrel containing damp brown sugar, press a quant.i.ty, and suddenly relax your grasp, and it moves as though it was alive. It is alive! Place a few grains under a powerful microscope, and lo! you see organized animals, with bodies, heads, eyes, legs, and claws!

Poor people, who purchase brown sugar in preference to white, miss a figure in their selection, by the sand, water, and other foreign substances which the former contains.

Brown sugar is not so wholesome as the refined. I have attributed several cases of gravel that have come under my observation to the patients'

habitual use of low grades of brown sugar.

CONFECTIONERY. THE FIRST STEP IN ITS ADULTERATION.

Confectionery and sweetmeats used to be manufactured from sugar, flour, fruit, nuts, etc., and flavored with sa.s.safras, lemon, orange, vanilla, rose, and the extracts of various other plants or vegetables. When compet.i.tion came in the way of profits on these articles, the avaricious and dishonest manufacturer began to subst.i.tute or add something of a cheaper or heavier nature to these compositions, which would enable him to sell at a lower price, with even a greater profit. Candy cheats were not easily detected, the sweets and flavors hiding the mult.i.tude of sins of the confectioner.

It seemed all but useless for the would-be honest manufacturer to attempt to either compete with his rival or to expose his rascalities, which latter would only serve to advertise the wares of his compet.i.tor. Hence he, too, adopted the same practice of adulterating his manufactures. One dishonest man makes a thousand. I do not affirm that there are no honest confectioners,--this would be as ungenerous as untrue,--or that we must use no confectionery. But let us hereby learn to avoid that which is impure.

GYPSUM, TERRA ALBA, OR PLASTER OF PARIS.

This is the princ.i.p.al article used in the manufacture of impure candies.

The first intimation that the writer had of terra alba being mixed with sugar in candy, was when one confectioner placed a sample of the _white earth_ in a dish upon his counter, with a sample of confectionery made therefrom, to expose the cheat of his rivals. "But as for me, I make only pure candies," etc., was his affirmation. Well, perhaps he did.

What is the nature of gypsum, terra alba, or white earth? Gypsum, or sulphate of lime, is a white, crystalline mineral, found in the excrement of most animals. Hence gypsum is extensively used as an artificial manure.

It is found in peat soil, also used for manure, and is a natural production, occurring in rocky ma.s.ses, under various names, as alabaster, anhydrate, and selenite.

The natural gypsum, or plaster of commerce, consists of

Water, 21 per cent.

Lime, 33 "

Sulphuric acid, 46 "

--- 100

Plaster was used as a fertilizer by the early Roman and British farmers.

It was introduced into America in 1772. It may here be worthy of notice, that when Dr. Franklin desired to exhibit its utility to his unbelieving countrymen, he sowed upon a field near Was.h.i.+ngton, in large letters, with pulverized gypsum, the following words: "This has been plastered."

The result is supposed to have been highly convincing. But this was as a manure. Dr. Franklin did not recommend it as a condiment.

You may know children who have been sown with plaster--though that plaster was modified by the smaller admixture of sugar--by their pale, puny, weakly appearance. Sugar has a tendency to increase the fatty and warming matter of the system; gypsum, or terra alba, to destroy it.

Gypsum is used in confectionery without being calcined. Calcined plaster, after being wet, readily "sets," or hardens. Heating gypsum deprives it of the percentage of water, when it is known to commerce as "plaster of Paris." It is cheap as manure; hence it is used instead of sugar.

Terra alba taken into the system absorbs the moisture essential to health, and disposes the child to weakness of the joints and spinal column, to rickets, marasmus, and consumption. There are other diseases to which its habitual use exposes the user; but if parents will not heed the above warning, it is useless to multiply reasons for not feeding children upon cheap or adulterated confectionery.

TO DETECT MINERAL SUBSTANCE.

Take no man's _ipse dixit_ when the health or lives of your precious ones are at stake. "Prove all things."

To detect mineral substances in candy, put a quant.i.ty--particularly of lozenges, peppermints, or cream candy--into a bowl, pour on sufficient hot water to cover it well. Sugar is soluble in boiling water to any extent.

Terra alba is not. The sugar will all disappear; the plaster, sand, etc., will settle to the bottom; the coloring matter will mix in or rise to the top of the water. _Pure candies leave no sediment when dissolved in hot water._

I have seen some "chocolate cream drops" which were half terra alba; nor were these purchased upon the street corners, where the worst sorts are said to be exhibited. Boston dealers complain that some New York houses send drummers to Boston who offer confectionery at a less price, at wholesale, than it costs to manufacture a fair grade of the same by any process yet known, in Boston. Chocolate drops are made by a patent process at about seventeen cents per pound when sugar is fourteen, and chocolate thirty-five cents per pound.

Gum arabic drops have been sold for seventeen cents when sugar cost almost twice that sum, and pure gum arabic nearly three times seventeen cents. I asked an extensive confectioner how this could be explained, and he said, "By using glucose in place of gum arabic."

Now, glucose is a sugar obtained from grapes, a very nice subst.i.tute for the above, though less sweet than other sugars--as cane, beet, etc.

"What do you call glucose?" I asked this confectioner.

"It is mucilage made from glue," was his reply.

Glue is a nasty substance, at best. It is extracted by no very neat process from the refuse of skins, parings, hoofs, entrails, etc., of animals, particularly of oxen, calves, and sheep. It usually lies till it becomes stale and corrupt before being made into glue.

A confectioner showed me some "gum arabic drops" made from this patent "glucose" which cost but thirteen cents per pound. Jessop exhibited some extra pure gum drops which actually cost fifty cents to manufacture. I found all his costlier candies to be pure.

Gum drops are a luxury, and are excellent for bronchial difficulties, inflammation of the throat, larynx, and stomach. How shall we, then, tell a pure gum arabic drop from those nasty glue drops? First, the cheap article is usually of a darker color. The pure gum arabic drops are light color, like the gum. Take one in your fingers and double it over. If it possesses sufficient elasticity to bend on itself thus without breaking the grain, you may feel pretty sure it is gum arabic. The glue drop is brittle, and breaks up rough as it bends.

Do not purchase the colored drops. Pure sugar and gum arabic are white, or nearly so, and require no coloring.

Purchase only of a reliable party. Avoid colored confectionery, also all cheap candies. Even maple sugar makers _have heard_ of sand and gypsum.

POISONOUS COLORING MATTER, ETC.

The following poisonous coloring materials are sometimes used in confectionery, says "The Art of Confectionery," but should be avoided: Scheele's green, a deadly poison, composed of a.r.s.enic and copper; verdigris (green), or acetate of copper--another deadly poison; red oxide of lead; brown oxide of lead; ma.s.sicot, or, yellow oxide of lead; oxide of copper, etc.; vermilion, or sulphuret of mercury; gamboge, chromic acid, and Naples yellow. "Litmus, also, should be avoided, as it is frequently incorporated with a.r.s.enic and the per-oxide of mercury."

Ultramarine blue is barely admissible, and blue candies are less liable to be injurious than green, yellow, or red. Marigolds and saffron are sometimes used for coloring; but the cost of these, particularly the latter, compared with the minerals, as French and chrome yellows, is so high, rendering the temptation to subst.i.tute the latter so great, that purchasers should give themselves the benefit of the fear, and use no yellow candies of a cheap quality. Green candy is the most dangerous. Buy none, use none; they are mostly very dangerous confections.

LICORICE, GUM DROPS, ETC.

About the nastiest of all candies are the licorice and the chocolate conglomerations. Glue, mola.s.ses, brown sugar, plaster, and lampblack, are among their beauties, with, for the latter, just sufficient real chocolate to give them a possible flavor. Licorice is cheap enough and nasty enough, but the addition of refuse mola.s.ses, glue, and lampblack, which is no unusual matter, makes it still more repulsive.

Metcalf & Company, extensive wholesale and retail druggists, kindly gave me the figures of cost on the first, second, and lower grades of gum arabic, glucose, etc. The first quality of gum arabic costs, by the cask, about sixty to seventy-five cents per pound; the lowest about twenty-two.

There is a new manufacture in New York, with a "side issue," wherein they necessarily turn out large quant.i.ties of glucose,--refuse from grain,--and this is sold for eight to thirteen cents a pound, to confectioners. It is much better than glue, but still the glue is used to-day, and I have on my table at this moment a sample of "gum drops" made this week in Boston from cheap glue, brown sugar, and a little Tonka bean flavor. The Tonka bean represents vanilla. These cost thirteen cents a pound, and are sometimes known, with the mucilage or glucose drops, to wholesale buyers, as "A. B."

drops, to distinguish them from pure gum arabic. The unfortunate consumer, however, is not informed regarding the difference.

DANGEROUS ACIDS.

"Sour drops," or lemon drops, are sometimes flavored with lemon; but oil of lemon is costly, and sulphuric and nitric acids are cheap, and more extensively used in confectionery. I recently sat down with a friend, in a first-cla.s.s restaurant, to a piece of "lemon pie," etc. I took St. Paul's advice, and partook of what was set before me, asking no questions for conscience' sake. The next morning, meeting the friend,--a physician, by the way,--I asked him how he liked tartaric acid. He replied, "Very well in a drink, but not in pies."

These acids are not only injurious to the teeth, but to the tender mucous membranes of the throat and stomach, engendering headache, colic-like pains, diarrhoea, and painful urinary diseases. Spirits of turpentine, or oil of turpentine, is extensively used in "peppermints;" also in essence of peppermint, often sold by peddlers, and in shops, as "pure essence." I question if any druggist would retail such impure and dangerous articles, since he would know it at sight, and ought to be familiar with its evil effects when used freely, as people use essence of peppermint. What I have stated respecting the flavoring of soda syrups is applicable to confectionery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TARTARIC ACID FOR SUPPER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET CANDY STAND.]

Hydrocyanic acid, or prussic acid, which is mentioned as being used to represent "wild cherry," in syrup or medicines, is employed in candies to give an "almond" flavor. Oil of bitter almonds is very costly, which is the excuse for subst.i.tuting the much cheaper article, prussic acid.

The temptations set in the way of children to purchase candies are so great, and the adulterations so common, that I have devoted more s.p.a.ce to the _expose_ of these cheats than I at first intended; but I hope that the public will hereby take warning, and mark the beneficial results which will accrue from an avoidance of cheap, painted, and adulterated confectioneries. These are sold everywhere, but most commonly upon the streets.