Jam, marmalade, and glucose / by William Murrell, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician to the Westminster Hospital; lecturer on clinical medicine and joint lecturer on the principles and practice of medicine; examiner in the University of Glasgow.

  • Murrell, William, 1853-1912
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Jam, marmalade, and glucose / by William Murrell, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician to the Westminster Hospital; lecturer on clinical medicine and joint lecturer on the principles and practice of medicine; examiner in the University of Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It will be remembered that glucose or grape sugar is the natural sugar of fruits which do not, as a rule, contain cane sugar. Beer.—Glucose is largely employed in the manu¬ facture of beer. Of late a demand has sprung up for light sparkling ales, and the old-fashioned fully- flavoured heady beverages have to a great extent gone out of fashion. One of the nicest and cleanest tasting pale ales with which I am acquainted con¬ tains a considerable quantity of glucose, and is a wholesome and refreshing drink. Just at the pre¬ sent moment there is a prejudice against the use of glucose, for to the man in the street glucose spells arsenic ; but this is a delusion, for glucose as supplied by the best makers is absolutely free from any in¬ jurious agent. There has been much talk of late about “ pure beer,” but as a matter of fact the public do not care for and will not drink a beer prepared from malt and hops alone, and want, something lighter and more palatable. As long as they are supplied with a beer which is perfectly wholesome they can not be said to be “prejudiced” even in the technical sense of the word, and the consumer has a perfect right to demand and obtain the product which pleases his taste and suits his requirements. Glucose.—It is unfortunate that the term “glu¬ cose” is employed in a dual sense. It is used by physiologists as a synonym for dextrose or grape sugar, and by chemists and manufacturers to designate what, for the sake of convenience, may be called “commercial glucose.” To add to the con¬ fusion, some writers on chemistry apply the word dextrose to the commercial article. It need hardly be pointed out to what complications and misunder¬ standings this may give rise in courts of law, when witnesses are cross-examined on isolated sentences, taken from papers or books, with the context of which they may not be acquainted. The words glucose, grape sugar, starch sugar, dextrose, and dextro-glucose, are used by chemists for the same jjroduct. Commercially the term grape sugar is applied to the solid and glucose to the liquid article.