The Van Buren Press

POISONED SWEETS.

Danger Lurking in the Sugars and Syrups on Which the Youngsters Feed.

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.

So many dangerous sirups and sugars have flooded the market of late that it may be of interest to the public to read the expressions of a scientist in regard to the matter. Parents may be administering virtually a poison to their children when they feed them with sirup, and it is well enough for them to be on their guard against the clear looking but pernicious kinds of molasses, which may contain the most injurious ingredients in them.

Yesterday a reporter of the Courier-Journal obtained from Dr. J. P. Barnum some interesting facts in regard to the various sirups and sugars and their effect. The first question propounded was, "Have you examined lately any of the various sirups which are for sale at the groceries?"

"I have examined," said the doctor, "quite a large number of refined sugars and sirups during the past few months, and I have not been able to obtain a single sample, except either whole or cut-loaf, which was free from artificial glucose (prepared from starch by the action of sulphuric acid,) muriate solutions. The sirups were even worse than the sugars, containing from fifteen to forty per cent. of glucose, which always showed large quantities of free sulphuric acid, a single honorable exception which came from Belcher's refinery in St. Louis, being the only one fit to be taken into the human stomach."

"Are all the sirups made now tainted with poison?" asked the reporter, somewhat alarmed.

"While this wholesale poisoning of the people has been going on for years in a hidden way, it seems to have culminated at the present time in driving out all the honorable manufacturers in refined sugars, and giving over the market entirely to the poisoners."

"What effect does sulphuric acid have on a person?"

"The effects of the continued use of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) on the system need hardly be mentioned. Griping pains in the stomach, irritation of the whole alimentary canal, diarrhoea, cholera morbus and cholera infantum, ending too frequently in adults with chronic diarrhoea or dyspepsia, and in the child, to whom sugar is often the principal article of food, in death. I have had under my personal observation cases where whole families of children have been poisoned by the use of sirup as an article of food. It is extremely probable that the large loss of life among young children during the past summer from cholera infantum and similar diseases was largely increased by, if not primarily due to, the use of adulterated sugar as an article of food.'"

"How is it that the Government does not put a stop to such rascality?'

"The certificates attached to invoices of sugar by the Government Inspector and exports are thoroughly worthless, and only calculated to deceive, as the tests required are easily evaded by the sharp rascals, while the polariscope has become a positive instrument for swindling—no better than a brace-box in the hands of a faro dealer."

"What is a good test to employ for discovering the presence of the poison?"

"Dissolve a little sugar in distilled or pure rain water in a test tube or homeopathic vial. To this add a few drops of solution of chloride of barium. If a precipitate occurs and the solution becomes clouded, and a few drops of nitric acid and heat to boiling. If the solution remains clear after the addition of the barium solution or become clear after boiling with nitric acid, no artificial sugar is present. A good test for muriate of tin is to dissolve as before, add a few drops of a solution of carbonate of ammonia, which will show the presence of stannous or stannic acid, by the solution becoming turbid on account of the precipitation of sulphate of tin,"

"Aren't these solutions rather too expensive for common use?'

"These solutions, with test tubes will cost but a trifle, and will show conclusively the presence of the most common and dangerous adulteration of sugars and sirups, and while in some instances, in unskillful hands, it may condemn an article of sugar or sirup which has only an accidental mixture of harmless phosphates, it will in no case fail to show the presence of sulphuric acid and muriate of tin. Its errors are all in the right direction, if any occur, and can be freely used by any housekeeper. Samples of sugar, sirup or honey, which show precipitation with the above reagents, should never be used for culinary purposes."