摘要:

THE ANALYST. 105 NOTES OF THE MONTH. THE opponents of the Sale of Food and Drugs’ Act, 1875, who seem determined never to lack reasons for adulterating, or excuses for adulteration when it has been committed, induced Mr. Isaac, at the fag end of the session, to bring a short bill into the House of Commons for the purpose of making an alteration in the above Act, and if it had not been for careful watchfulness on the part of the hon.member for the University of Olasgow, Dr. Cameron, there would have been a fair chance of the bill passing through106 THE dNALYST. the Commons and going up to the Lords. objectionable. The Bill itself was short but none the less It was t o the following effect :- A BILL TO AMFND “ THE SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGB’ ACT, 1875.” Whereas doubts have arisen with respect to the interpretation of 38 & 39 Vict.cap. 63, sec. 6 (Sale of Food and Drugs’ Act, 1876) : Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows : 1. In determining whether an offence has been committed under scc.G of 38 and 39 Vict., cap. 63 by selling to the prejudice of the purchaser, whether wholesale or retail, spirits reduced by the admixture of water, regard shall be had, not only to the extent of such admixture, but also to the price at which the spirits so reduced are sold. It will bo seen that if it had passed into law the difficulties of public analysts would have been increased to a great extent, as they would hart: had to judge as to the value of the spirits at the place wherc they mere sold; in fact, putting it in plain language, they would have had t o judge whether Martell’s brandy and Hennessfs whisky were each worth the price at which they were sold, and would have been placed in the unenviable position of being judges of quality as well as of purity.There mould probably have been but little chance of the Bill rcnching even so advanced astage as it did, but that the Government wanted to make a few slight amendments in the Sale or“ Food and Drugs’ Act, in order to bring thc latter more in accordance with one or two peculiar enactments which appear t o prevail in Ireland, and consequently they added a a clause to Nr.Isaac’s Bill, and so made it to some extent a Government measure. We should hare thought the decision of the High Court of Justice in the case of Webb v. K n i g h t was sufficient to settle the point as t o diluted gin, but it appears thc trade thought it was not so, and therefore the thanks of analysts are due to Dr. Cameron for having so promptly defeated this measure.It is probable it will be brought in again next year, and if so it will have to be fought more vigorously, as it mill no doubt be introduced earlier in the session. Castor Oil Pills have been i n the Law Courts again, and we reprint on another page a report of the case. As might have been expected, the trade journals are annoyed a t the matter, but we cannot see what they can possibly have t o complain of.Compound rhubarb pills are good in their way, but why should they not be sold under that name instead of under a fictitious one. KO doubt, as one of the trade jourlials puts it, the public do not require to be told, without chemical analysis, that a bucket full of castor oil cannot be contained in a box full of pills, but no one says the public do-what the chemists are prosecuted for, is for selling as castor oil pills, pills which not only do not contain a trace of castor oil, but are in fact a totally difyerent article.Wc dare assert that the majority of the public when purchasing these pills, believe, unless they are told to the contrary, that they do contain castor oil, and we see no reason why every chemist should not act as other tradesmen do when they are asked for something they do not sell, and at once say so, leaving the customer to please himself about * ABalyst, Vol, 2, page 6s.THE ANALYST.107 taking aomething else, which the chemist may recommend as equally good or better. We should like to know what a chemist does when he is asked for compoiind rhubarb pills.We agree with one of the witnesses that it is not a chemist’s duty to educate tho public, but that applies both ways, and if chemists have thought it their duty to educate the public to believe, as without doubt they have, that castor oil pilis contain castor oil, we are strongly of opinion that it is their duty, and cannot see how they can object, to educate them back again. A well known champion of druggists has come to the fore t o defend the sale of castor oil pills, i.e., these compound rhubarb pills.He estimates, that it would require 438 castor oil pills to make one dose if they really did contain any castor oil, but apprehends that scarcely anyone out of a lunatic asylum would imagine they did contain any. X‘e may safely leave him to go on apprehending what lunatics may imagine, but we shall certainly have to enquire as to the sanity of one of our inspectors, for he thought the pills contained oil, and bought a box the other day.Our friend enquires whether druggists will be liable to penalties for selling ‘( cold cream,” and ‘‘ violet powder,” which are also misnomers. The simplest mode would be for him to purchase a sample and take it to the Public Analyst of the district, and if he receives a certificate of adulteration, prosecute on it, he will then obtain a legal decision.We re-print on another page some correspondence from the Western Mornipq News. relating to a sample of milk which has recently been annlysed by Nr. A. Wynter Blyth, the Public Analyst for Barnstaple. I t mill be seen that the sample was taken to Mr.Blyth as a catch, and that the statements on the part of the milk dealers avoid making any reference to the condition of the cow, or as to whether she was fully milked and yielded a fair quantity. Samples of the milk itself have been handed to us for icdependent examination, and we have certainly never met with a cow yet which yielded milk containing so little fat.I n view of this Mr. Blyth’s certificate appears to us to be quite correct. He does not assert that the milk “had been sliimmed,” but only that it had been “almost entirely deprived of its cream.,’ Now it is obvious that there are three ways in which this may be done, namely, lst, skimming, 2nd, stripping, 3rd, disease. I n any one of these three cases the sale of such milk would constitute an offence against the sale of Food and Drugs’ Act.Milk certainly means whole milk, i.e. the entire produce derived from the cow, clearly therefore either skimming, properly so called, or “ stripping,’’ i.e. partial milking of the cow, constitute offences against the Act, since they both separate the milk into two portions, one containing an excess of fatty matter and one a deficiency. Clearly also the milk of a diseased cow is not of the “nature, substance, and quality,” proper, t o be sold under the name of milk. There has been more than one conviction alreedy for such an offence. If the milksellers really meant to act in a honB fide way, why did they not have the COW examined by and milked in the presence of a veterinary surgeon. I f for the sake of extra profit a milkman half starves a cow till he produces disease, we hold that if he sells the milk of that COW as genuine milk, he is justly liable t o conviction under the Act.

ISSN:0003-2654    

DOI:10.1039/AN8770200105

出版商:RSC    

年代:1877

数据来源: RSC

摘要:

108 THE ANALYST. CAPSAICXN-THE ACTIVE PRINCIPLE OF CAYENNE PEPPER. By J. C. THRESH, F.C.S. Read abefore the Pharmaceutical Conference-aabstracted 6y the Author. BY acting upon 301bs of pepper, the author hoped to obtain a sufficient quantity of capsaicin t o admit of its thorough chemical investigation, but in this he was disappointed, as only from 3 to 4 drams of the slightly impure principle was isolated.The pepper w’as first exhausted with spirits, and the spirits removed by distillation. The residue weighed Qlbs. This was treated with benzine, and the fats left upon evaporation of the benzine solution, dissolved in a little warm petroleum. The solution after a fcw daj 8 deposited a very large quantity of a fatty acid, which when separated and purified, cxhibited all the properties of palmitic acid.From the filtered petroleum tho capsaicin was removed by repeated treatment with spirits of wine, and about 1 dram of perfectly pure crystalline principle, obtained by crystallization from ether. Burnt with lead chromate ,356 grams, gave 9105 CO,, and -2995 H2 0 ; *38 grams gave ,9745 These results agree closely with the formula C, H,, O,, obtained by Dr.Buri, from a sample of capsaicin, prepared by the author from Natal pepper. By oxidation with nitric acid, oxalic and succinic acids are formed, together with a crystalline, and an oily substance, as yet unexamined. Capsaicin appears to form more than one substitution product when treated with chlorine, and forms crystalline compounds with the metals, calcium, barium, and mercury.C02 and -318 H, 0. &ECENT CHEMICAL PATENTS. The following specificatione have been published during the past month, and can be obtained from the Great Seal Office, Southampton Row, Chancery Lane, London. 1876. KO. 4652 4765 4905 4999 6001 6065 6061 1877. 27 77 97 121 169 190 263 272 457 1374 Name of Patentee. E. G. Brewer . . . . . . . . . W. Morgan Brown . .. . . . S. A. Varley . . . . . . . . . J. B. Kunkel . . . . . . . . . J. Hargreaves . . . . . . . . . W. E. Gedge . . . . . . . . . C. and A. Forrest . . . . . . W. R. Lake . . . . . . . . . E. Solvay . . . . . . . . . T. A. Collinge & T. 0. Paterson P. Dronier . . . . . . . . . 5. G. Tongue . . . . . . . . . J. H. Johnson . . . . . . . . . J. Honzean E. Devedeix and J. Holden .. . . . . . . . R. W. Wallace & C. F. Clans ... W. Moody . . . . . . . . . F. Lecourt & A. Guillemare ... Title of Patent. Price. Centrifugal Drying Machines or Extractors . . . . . . 6d. Electric Telephony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 /4 Apparatus for Producing Electric Light . . . . . . . . . 10d. Eliminating Phosphorus from Iron . . . . . . . . . 2d. Apparatus for Manufacture of Chlorine .. . . . . . . . 6d. Manufacture of Hydrocarburets of Coal Tar, &c. ... 4d. Drying and Powdering Blood, &c. . . . . . . . . . 6d. Apparatus for Testing Milk . . . . . . . . . . . . 2d. Manufacture of Chlorine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d. Purifying Coal Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6d. Lighting Gas by Electricity . . . . . .. . . . . . 2d. Obtaining Colouring Matter from Coal . . . . . . . . . 2d. Treating Saccharine Juices . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d. Purifying Sewage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d. Purification of Gas and Utilization of Bye Products ... 4d. Manufacture of Hyposulphite of Soda, &c. . . . . . . 4d. Manufacture and Application of Chlorophylle . . . . . . 4d. BOOES, &c., RECEIVED. The Chemist and Druggist ; The Brewers’ Guardian; The American Chemist ; The British Medical Journal; The Medical Examiner ; The Medical Times and Gazette ; The Pharmaceutical Journal ; The Sanitary Record ; The Telegraphic Review ; The Medical Record ; The Geological Society’s Proceedings ; The Miller ; The Anti-Adulteratioi Review

ISSN:0003-2654    

DOI:10.1039/AN8770200108

出版商:RSC    

年代:1877

数据来源: RSC