Final report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into arsenical poisoning from the consumption of beer and other articles of food or drink. Pt. 1, Final report.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Arsenical Poisoning.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into arsenical poisoning from the consumption of beer and other articles of food or drink. Pt. 1, Final report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hydrochloric acid, which are used in varying proportions (¢.g., from 2 to 6 per cent.) in the ‘‘ conversion” process by which the glucose is manufactured from starch. In view of the circumstances of the 1900 epidemic it is unnecessary to insist upon the high degree of arsenical precautions regarding the quality of the acid used. Solid glucose manufactured by Bostock & Co. in 1900 in several instances was ascertained to contain as much arsenic as 3 grains per pound, and even larger proportions of arsenic were estimated in a few specimens. 72. If due attention is given to the purity of the chemical sub- stances employed, there appears to be no difficulty in producing glucose which is free from arsenic. As stated in our first report, glucose manufacturers in general were aware of the necessity of guarding against arsenic before the 1900 epidemic, and took precautions with this object. Since then, as was to be expected, such precautions have been generally strengthened. Instances have been reported to us in which specimens of glucose, both of home and foreign manufacture, and not coming from Bostock’s, have been found to contain from goth to +4th grain of arsenic per pound (3°5 to 11:9 parts per million), and some of those arsenical specimens apparently have been of recent manufacture. But such instances have been few, and we have evidence that glucose supplied to brewers has lately been almost uniformly satisfactory as regards arsenic. Some 500 specimens of such glucose have been tested at the Government Laboratory since the issue of our first report. In the majority no arsenic was detected; and in the remainder, with only two exceptions, the amount of arsenic present was below 51,th grain per pound (‘57 parts per million). “INVERT” SUGAR. 73. The “invert” sugar which is used by brewers (and sometimes .also in the preparation of cider and of certain fermented ‘‘ non-intox1- cating ” beverages) is manufactured in this country on a considerable scale by subjecting cane or beet sugar to an “‘inversion” process in which sulphuric acid is added to the sugar. At the works of Bostock and Co., about 3 per cent. of sulphuric acid was used for this purpose, and the “invert” sugar produced in 1900 contained large amounts of arsenic (estimated in different specimens from 1°4 to 4:3 grains per pound). 74. Contamination of “invert” sugar by arsenic is avoidable by the exercise of due care on the part of the manufacturer to secure that number of samples of ‘‘invert” sugar have been recently examined for arsenic at the Government Laboratory with negative results. Other samples also recently tested there have shown only small quantities of -arsenic, in nearly all cases below, {5th grain per pound. GLYCERINE. 75. Glycerine is of importance in view of its use in various articles -of confectionery, and also as an ingredient of certain kinds of cake. Glycerine which has been prepared by distillation of the crude glycerine derived from soap makers’ lyes may contain considerable amounts of arsenic derived mainly from the hydrochloric acid used in the manufacture of the crude product. For pharmaceutical or food purposes the arsenic can be removed from glycerine so prepared by suitable processes at the glycerine distillery, and glycerine which has been thoroughly de-arsenicated, as also glycerme which has been prepared by hydrolysis, habitually shows either no trace of arsenic, or else any arseni¢ present is too small in amount to be detected by the Gutzeit test which the British Pharmacopeia, 1898, directs to be applied to pharmacopceial glycerine. It should however be observed that doubts have been -expressed as to the sufficiency of this pharmacopceial test. It has Salamon, 1466. Garton, 60 9-64. Francis, 7355. Wahl, 7431-9, Tattersa.l. 15. Jones, 1768. C. Brown, 6709. Hooper, 7859. Ling, 10,576, 10,632. Primrose, 11 BAI (Table IT.) Appx. 24, p. 235, Primrose, 11,847. Tattersall, 20. C. Brown, 6709. Hooper, 7869. Delepine, Appx. 12, p. 349. Primrose, 11,847. Appx. 24, pp. 238, 258. C. Brown, p. 258. if. Smith, 10,916-8.