_Sugar_, _Cane-Sugar_, _Sucrose_; F. _Sucre_, _Sucre de canne_; G.
_Zucker_, _Rohrzucker_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Saccharum officinarum_ L., the Sugar Cane. The
jointed stem is from 6 to 12 feet high, solid, hard, dense, internally
juicy, and hollow only in the flowering tops. Several varieties are
cultivated, as the _Country Cane_, the original form of the species;
the _Ribbon Cane_, with purple or yellow stripes along the stem; the
_Bourbon_ or _Tahiti Cane_, a more elongated, stronger, more hairy and
very productive variety. _Saccharum violaceum_ Tussac, the _Batavian
Cane_, is also considered to be a variety; but the large _S. chinense_
Roxb. introduced from Canton in 1796 into the Botanic Gardens of
Calcutta, may be a distinct species; it has a long, slender, erect
panicle, while that of _S. officinarum_ is hairy and spreading, with
the ramifications alternate and more compound, not to mention other
differences in the leaves and flowers.
The sugar cane is cultivated from cuttings, the small seeds very seldom
ripening. It succeeds in almost all tropical and subtropical countries,
reaching in South America and Mexico an elevation above the sea of
5000-6000 feet. It is cultivated in most parts of India and China up to
30-31° N. lat, the mountainous regions excepted.
From the elaborate investigations of Ritter,[2660] it appears that
_Saccharum officinarum_ was originally a native of Bengal, and of the
Indo-Chinese countries, as well as of Borneo, Java, Bali, Celebes, and
other islands of the Malay Archipelago. But there is no evidence that
it is now found any where in a wild state.
=History=[2661]—The sugar cane was doubtless known in India from time
immemorial, and grown for food as it still is at the present day,
chiefly in those regions which are unsuited for the manufacture of
sugar.[2662]
Herodotus, Theophrastus, Seneca, Strabo, and other early writers had
some knowledge of raw sugar, which they speak of as the _Honey of
Canes_ or _Honey made by human hands_, not that of bees; but it was
not until the commencement of the Christian era, that the ancients
manifested an undoubted acquaintance with sugar, under the name of
_Saccharon_.
Thus Dioscorides[2663] about A.D. 77 mentions the concreted honey
called Σάκχαρον found upon canes (ὲπὶ τῶν καλάμων) in India and Arabia
Felix, and which in substance and brittleness resemble salt. Pliny
evidently knew the same thing under the name _Saccharum_; and the
author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, A.D. 54-68, states that
honey from canes, called σάκχαρι, is exported from Barygaza, in the
Gulf of Cambay, to the ports of the Red Sea, west of the _Promontorium
Aromatum_, that is to say to the coast opposite Aden. Whether at that
period sugar was produced in Western India, or was brought thither from
the Ganges, is a point still doubtful.
[2660] _Erdkunde von Asien_, ix. West-Asien, Berlin, 1840. pp. 230-291.
[2661] The learned investigations of Heyd, _Levantehandel_, ii. (1879)
665-667, afford exhaustive information about the medicinal history of
sugar.
[2662] The production which the English translators of the Bible have
rendered _Sweet Cane_, and which is alluded to by the prophets Isaiah
(ch. xliii. 24) and Jeremiah (ch. vi. 20) as a commodity imported
from a distant country, has been the subject of much discussion. Some
have supposed it to be the sugar cane; others, an aromatic grass
(_Andropogon_). In our opinion, there is more reason to conclude that
it was _Cassia Bark_.
[2663] Lib. ii. c. 104.
Bengal is probably the country of the earliest manufacture of sugar;
hence its names in all the languages of Western-Asiatic and European
nations are derived from the Sanskrit _Sharkarā_, signifying a
substance in the shape of small grains or stones. It is strange that
this word contains no allusion to the _taste_ of the substance.
_Candy_, as sugar in large crystals is called, is derived from the
Arabic _Kand_ or _Kandat_, a name of the same signification. An old
Sanskrit name of Central Bengal is _Gura_, whence is derived the word
_Gula_, meaning _raw sugar_, a term for sugar universally employed
in the Malayan Archipelago, where on the other hand they have their
own names for the sugar cane, although not for sugar. This fact again
speaks in favour of Ritter’s opinion, that the preparation of sugar
in a dry crystalline state is due to the inhabitants of Bengal. Sugar
under the name of _Shi-mi_, i.e. _Stone-honey_, is frequently mentioned
in the ancient Chinese annals among the productions of India and
Persia; and it is recorded that the Emperor Tai-tsung, A.D. 627-650,
sent an envoy to the kingdom of Magadha in India, the modern Bahar, to
learn the method of manufacturing sugar.[2664] The Chinese, in fact,
acknowledge that the Indians between A.D. 766 and 780 were their first
teachers in the art of refining sugar, for which they had no particular
ancient written character.
An Arabian writer, Abu Zayd al Hasan,[2665] informs us that about
A.D. 850 the sugar cane was growing on the north-eastern shore of
the Persian Gulf; and in the following century, the traveller Ali
Istakhri[2666] found sugar abundantly produced in the Persian province
of Kuzistan, the ancient Susiana. About the same time (A.D. 950), Moses
of Chorene, an Armenian, also stated that the manufacture of sugar was
flourishing near the celebrated school of medicine at Jondisabur in the
same province, and remains of this industry in the shape of millstones,
&c., still exist near Ahwas.
Persian physicians of the 10th and 11th centuries, as Rhazes, Haly
Abbas, and Avicenna, introduced sugar into medicine. The Arabs
cultivated the sugar cane in many of their Mediterranean settlements,
as Cyprus, Sicily, Italy, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Calendar of
Cordova[2667] shows that as early as A.D. 961 the cultivation was well
understood in Spain, which is now the only country in Europe where
sugar mills still exist.[2668]
William II., King of Sicily, presented in A.D. 1176 to the convent of
Monreale mills for grinding cane, the culture of which still lingers at
Avola near Syracuse, though only for the sake of making rum. In 1767,
the sugar plantations and sugar houses at this spot were described by a
traveller[2669] as “worth seeing.”
During the middle ages England, in common with the rest of Northern
Europe, was supplied with sugar from the Mediterranean countries,
especially Egypt and Cyprus. It was imported from Alexandria as early
as the end of the 10th century by the Venetians, with whom it long
remained an important article of trade. Thus we find[2670] that in
A.D. 1319, a merchant in Venice, Tommaso Loredano, shipped to London
100,000 lb. of sugar, the proceeds of which were to be returned in
_wool_, which at that period constituted the great wealth of England.
Sugar was then very dear: thus from 1259 to 1350, the average price
in England was about 1_s._ per lb., and from 1351 to 1400, 1_s._
7_d._[2671] In France during the same period it must have been largely
obtainable, though doubtless expensive. King John II. ordered in 1353
that the apothecaries of Paris should not use honey in making those
confections which ought to be prepared with the good white sugar called
_cafetin_,[2672] a name alluding to the peculiar shape of the loaf
which was not uncommon at that time.[2673]
[2664] Bretschneider, _Chinese Botanical Works_, 1870. 46.
[2665] Ritter, _l.c._ 286.
[2666] P. 57 of the book quoted in the Appendix.
[2667] _Le Calendrier de Cordoue de l’année_ 961, par R. Dozy, Leyde,
1873. 25. 41. 91.
[2668] There are several in the neighbourhood of Malaga.
[2669] Riedesel, _Travels through Sicily_, Lond. 1773. 67.
[2670] Marin, _Commercio de’ Veneziani_, v. 306.
[2671] Rogers, _Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England_, i. (1866)
633. 641.
[2672] _Ordonnances des rois de France_, ii. (1729) 535.
[2673] Several other varieties of sugar occurring in the mediæval
literature are explained in the _Documente_ (quoted at page 404,
footnote 7) p. 32.
The importance of the sugar manufacture in the East was witnessed in
the latter half of the 13th century by Marco Polo;[2674] and in 1510
by Barbosa and other European travellers; and the trading nations
of Europe rapidly spread the cultivation of the cane over all the
countries, of which the climate was suitable. Thus its introduction
into Madeira goes back as far as A.D. 1420; it reached St. Domingo in
1494,[2675] the Canary Islands in 1503, Brazil in the beginning of
the 16th century, Mexico about 1520, Guiana about 1600, Guadaloupe in
1644, Martinique in 1650,[2676] Mauritius towards 1750, Natal[2677] and
New South Wales, about 1852,[2678] while from a very early period the
sugar cane had been propagated from the Indian Archipelago over all the
islands of the Pacific Ocean.
The ancient cultivation in Egypt, probably never quite extinct, has
been revived on an extensive scale by the Khedive Ismail Pasha. There
were 13 sugar factories, making raw sugar, belonging to the Egyptian
Government at work in 1872, and about 100,000 acres of land devoted to
sugar cane. The export of sugar from Egypt in 1872 reached 2 millions
of _kantars_, or about 89,200 tons.[2679]
The imperfection of organic chemistry previous to the middle of the
18th century, permitted no exact investigations into the chemical
nature of sugar. Marggraf of Berlin[2680] proved in 1747 that sugar
occurs in many vegetables, and succeeded in obtaining it in a pure
crystallized state from the juice of beet root. The enormous practical
importance of this discovery did not escape him, and he caused serious
attempts to be made for rendering it available, which were so far
successful that the first manufactory of beet-sugar was established in
1796 by Achard at Kunern in Silesia.
This new branch of industry[2681] was greatly promoted by the
prohibitive measures, whereby Napoleon excluded colonial sugar from
almost the whole Continent; and it is now carried forward on such a
scale that 640,000 to 680,000 tons of beet root sugar are annually
produced in Europe, the entire production of cane-sugar being estimated
at 1,260,000 to 1,413,000 tons.[2682]
Among the British colonies, Mauritius,[2683] British Guiana,[2684]
Trinidad,[2685] Barbados,[2686] and Jamaica,[2687] produce at present
the largest quantity of sugar.
[2674] Yule, _Book of Ser Marco Polo_, ii. (1871) 79. 171. 180. &c.
[2675] _Letters of Christ._ _Columbus_ (Hakluyt Society) 1870. 81-84.
[2676] De Candolle, _Géogr. botanique_, 836.
[2677] The value of the sugar exported from Natal in 1871 reached the
astonishing amount of £180,496 and £135,201 in 1876.
[2678] Yet owing to the gold discoveries, the propagation of the cane
in Australia was little thought of until about 1866 or 1867, when small
lots of sugar were made.
[2679] Consul Rogers, _Report on the Trade of Cairo for 1872_,
presented to Parliament.
[2680] _Expériences chymiques faites dans le dessein de tirer un
véritable sucre de diverses plantes qui croissent dans nos contrées_,
par Mr. Marggraf, traduit du latin—_Hist. de l’Académie royale des
sciences et belles-lettres_, année 1747 (Berlin 1749) 79-90.
[2681] And also that of _milk sugar_, which was then much used on the
Continent to _adulterate_ cane-sugar.
[2682] _Produce Markets Review_, March 28, 1868.
[2683] 2,255,249 quintals (one quintal = 108 lb. avdp.) in 1876.
[2684] 120,030 hhds (one hogshead = 1,792 lb.) in 1876.
[2685] 114,968,384 lb. in 1876.
[2686] 38,013 hhds. in 1876.
[2687] 29,074 hhds. in 1876.
=Production=—No crystals are found in the parenchyme of the cane, the
sugar existing as an aqueous solution, chiefly within the cells of
the centre of the stem. The transverse section of the cane exhibits
numerous fibro-vascular bundles, scattered through the tissue, as in
other monocotyledonous stems; yet these bundles are most abundant
towards the exterior, where they form a dense ring covered with a
thin epidermis, which is very hard by reason of the silica which is
deposited in it.[2688] In the centre of the stem the vascular bundles
are few in number; the parenchyme is far more abundant, and contains
in its thin-walled cells an almost clear solution of sugar, with a few
small starch granules and a little soluble albuminous matter. This last
is met with in larger quantity in the cambial portion of the vascular
bundles. Pectic principles are combined with the walls of the medullary
cells, which however do not swell much in water (Wiesner).
From these glances at the microscopical structure of the cane, the
process to be followed for obtaining the largest possible quantity
of sugar becomes evident. This would consist in simply macerating
thin slices of the cane in water, which would at once penetrate the
parenchyme loaded with sugar, without much attacking the fibro-vascular
bundles containing more of albuminous than of saccharine matter.
By this method, the epidermal layer of the cane would not become
saturated with sugar, nor would it impede its extraction,—results which
necessarily follow when the cane is crushed and pressed.[2689]
The process hitherto generally practised in the colonies,—that of
extracting the juice of the cane by crushing and pressing,—has been
elaborately described and criticised by Dr. Icery of Mauritius.[2690]
In that island, the cane, six varieties of which are cultivated, is
when mature composed of _Cellulose_, 8 to 12 per cent.; _Sugar_, 18
to 21; _Water_, including albuminous matter and salts, 67 to 73. Of
the entire quantity of juice in the cane, from 70 to 84 per cent. is
extracted for evaporation, and yields in a crystalline state about
three-fifths of the sugar which the cane originally contained. This
juice, called in French _vesou_, has on an average the following
composition:—
Albuminous matters 0·03
Granular matter (starch?) 0·10
Mucilage containing nitrogen 0·22
Salts, mostly of organic acids[2691] 0·29
Sugar 18·36
Water 81·00
------
100·00
[2688] Stems of American sugar cane, dried at 100° C., yielded 4
per cent of ash, nearly half of which was silica.—Popp, in Wiggers’
_Jahresbericht_, 1870. 35.
[2689] The plan of obtaining a syrup by macerating the sliced fresh
cane, has been tried in Guadaloupe, but abandoned owing to some
practical difficulties in exhausting the cane and in carrying on the
evaporation of the liquors with sufficient rapidity. Experiments for
extracting a pure syrup by means of cold water from the _sliced and
dried_ cane, seem to promise good results.—See a paper by Dr. H. S.
Mitchell in _Journ. of Soc. of Arts_, Oct. 23, 1868.
[2690] _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, v. (1865) 350-410.—See
also, for Cuba, Alvaro Reynoso _Ensayo sobre el cultivo de la caña
de Azúcar_, Madrid, 1865. 359.—For British Guiana, _Catal. of
Contributions from Brit. Guiana to Paris Exhib._ 1867. pp. xxxviii.-xli.
[2691] _Aconitic Acid_ (p. 11) has been met with by Behr (1877) in West
Indian molasses.
There is also present in the juice a very small amount of a slightly
aromatic substance (essential oil?) to which the _crude_ cane sugar
owes a peculiar odour which is not observed in sugar from other
sources. The first two classes of the above enumerated substances
render the juice turbid, and greatly promote its fermentation, but they
easily separate by boiling, and the juice may then be kept a short time
without undergoing change. In many colonies the yield is said to be far
inferior to what it should be; yet the juice is obtained in a state
allowing of easier purification, when its extraction is not carried to
the furthest limit.
In beet root as well as in the sugar cane, cane-sugar only was
said to be present; Icery however has proved that in the cane some
uncrystallizable (inverted) sugar is always present. Its quantity
varies much, according to the places where the cane grows, and its age.
The tops of quick-growing young canes yielded a _vesou_ containing
2·4 per cent. of uncrystallizable sugar; 3·6 of cane sugar; and 94
of water. Moist and shady situations greatly promote the formation
of the former kind of sugar, which also prevails in the tops,
chiefly when immature. Hence that observer concludes that at first
the uncrystallizable variety of sugar is formed, and subsequently
transformed into cane-sugar by the force of vegetation, and especially
by the influence of light. Perfectly ripened canes contain only ¹/₇₅ to
¹/₅₀ of all their sugar in the uncrystallizable state.
=Description and Chemical Composition=—Cane-sugar is the type of
a numerous class of well-defined organic compounds, of frequent
occurrence throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms, or
artificially obtained by decomposing certain other substances; in the
latter case, however, glucose or some other sugar than cane-sugar is
obtained. cane-sugar, C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁, or C₁₂H₁₄(OH)₈O₃, melts, without
change of composition, at 160° C., several other kinds of sugar giving
off water, with which they form crystallized compounds at the ordinary
temperature.
Cane-sugar forms hard crystals of the oblique rhombic system, having
a sp. gr. of 1·59. Two parts are dissolved at 15° C. by one part of
water,[2692] and by much less at an elevated temperature; a slight
depression of the thermometer is observable in the former case. One
part of sugar dissolved in one of water, forms a liquid of sp. gr.
1·23; two of sugar in one of water, a liquid of sp. gr. 1·33. Sugar
requires 65 parts of spirit of wine (sp. gr. 0·84) or 80 parts of
anhydrous alcohol for solution; ether does not act upon it.
[2692] It is commonly stated that _three_ parts can be dissolved in one
of cold water; but this is not the fact.
A ray of polarized light is deviated by an aqueous solution of cane
sugar to the _right_, but by some other kinds of sugar to the _left_,
as first shown by Biot. These optical powers are highly important, both
in the practical estimation of solutions of sugar, and in scientific
studies connected with sugar or saccharogenous substances. The
optical as well as chemical properties of sugar are altered by many
circumstances, as the action of dilute acids or alkalis, or by the
influence of minute fungi. Yeast occasions sugar to undergo alcoholic
fermentation. Other ferments set up an action by which butyric, lactic
or propionic acid are produced.
Cane-sugar is of a purer and sweeter taste than most other sugars.
Though it does not alter litmus paper, yet with alkalis it forms
compounds some of which are crystallizable. From an alkaline solution
of tartrate of copper, cane-sugar throws down no protoxide, unless
after boiling.
If sugar is kept a short time in a state of fusion at 160° C., it is
converted into one molecule of _Grape Sugar_ and one of _Levulosan_;
the former can be either isolated by crystallization or destroyed
by fermentation, the latter being incapable of crystallizing or of
undergoing fermentation.
Cane-sugar which has been melted at 160° C. is deliquescent and readily
soluble in anhydrous alcohol, and its rotatory power is diminished or
entirely destroyed. It is no longer crystallizable, and its fusing
point has become reduced to about 93° C. Yet before undergoing these
evident alterations, it assumes an amorphous condition if allowed to
melt with a third of its weight of water, becoming always a little
coloured by pyrogenous products. In the course of time, however, this
amorphous sugar loses its transparency and reassumes the crystalline
form. Like sulphur and arsenious acid, it is capable of existing either
in a crystallized or an amorphous state.
If sugar is heated to about 190° C. water is evolved, and we obtain
the dark brown products commonly called _Caramel_ or _Burnt Sugar_.
They are of a peculiar sharp flavour, of a bitter taste, incapable
of fermenting and deliquescent. One of the constituents of caramel,
_Caramelane_, C₁₂H₁₈O₉, has been obtained by Gélis (1862) perfectly
colourless. When the heat is augmented, the sugar at last suffers a
decomposition resembling that which produces tar (see p. 621), its
pyrogenous products being the same or very analogous to those of the
dry distillation of wood.
=Varieties of Cane-sugar=—The experiments of Marggraf referred to at
p. 717, note 9, showed that cane-sugar is by no means confined to the
sugar cane; and it is in fact extracted on an extensive scale from
several other plants, of which the following deserve mention:—
_Beet Root_—The manufacture of cane-sugar from the fleshy root of a
cultivated variety of _Beta maritima_ L., is now largely carried on in
Continental Europe and in America, and with admirable results.
Of fresh beet root, 100 parts contain on an average 80 per cent. of
water, 11 to 13 of cane-sugar, and about 7 per cent. of pectic and
albuminous matters, cellulose and salts. Of the total amount of juice
which the root contains, eight-ninths are extracted; and by the best
process now in practice, 8 to 9 parts of sugar from every 100 parts of
fresh root. The yield of crystalline sugar is still on the increase,
owing to continual improvements in the mechanical and chemical parts of
the process.
_Palm_—Several species are of great utility for the production of the
sugar called by Europeans _Jaggery_.[2693] This substance is obtained
by the natives of India in the following manner:—The young growing
spadix, or flowering shoot, of the palm is cut off near its apex; and
an earthen vessel is tied on to the stump to receive the juice that
flows out. This vessel is emptied daily; while to promote a continuous
flow of sap, a thin slice is cut from the wounded end. The juice thus
collected, if at once boiled down, yields the crude brown sugar known
as _jaggery_. If allowed to ferment, it becomes the inebriating drink
called _Toddy_ or palm wine; or it may be converted into vinegar. The
spirit distilled from toddy is _Arrack_.
[2693] A word of Sanskrit origin, corrupted from the Canarese
_sharkari_.
Of the sugar-yielding palms of Asia, _Phœnix silvestris_ Roxb., which
is supposed to be the wild form of the date palm, is one of the more
important. The coco-nut palm, _Cocos nucifera_ L.; the magnificent
Palmyra palm, _Borassua flabelliformis_ L.; and the Bastard Sago,
_Caryota urens_ L., also furnish important quantities of sugar. In
the Indian Archipelago, sugar is obtained from the sap of _Arenga
saccharifera_ Mart., which grows there in abundance as well as in
the Philippines and the Indo-Chinese countries. It is also got from
_Nipa fruticans_ Thunb., a tree of the low coast regions, extensively
cultivated in Tavoy.
De Vry[2694] has advocated the manufacture of sugar from the palm as
the most philosophical, seeing that its juice is a nearly pure aqueous
solution of sugar: that as no mineral constituents are removed from the
soil in this juice, the costly manuring, as well as the laborious and
destructive processes required to eliminate the juice from such plants
as the sugar cane and beet root, are avoided. And finally, that palms
are perennial, and can many of them be cultivated on a soil unsuitable
for any cereal.
_Maple_—In America, considerable quantities of sugar identical with
that of the cane are obtained in the woods of the Northern United
States and of Canada, by evaporating the juice of maples. The species
chiefly employed are _Acer saccharinum_ Wangenh., the Common Sugar
Maple, and its variety (var. _nigrum_) the Black Sugar Maple. _A.
Pennsylvanicum_ L., _A. Negundo_ L. (_Negundo aceroides_ Moench.) and
_A. dasycarpum_ Ehrh. are also used; the sap of the last is said to be
the least saccharine.
As the juice of these trees yields not more than about 2 per cent. of
sugar, it requires for its solidification a large expenditure of fuel.
The manufacture of maple sugar can therefore be advantageously carried
on only in countries remote from markets whence ordinary sugar can be
procured, or in regions where fuel is extremely plentiful. In North
America it flourishes only between 40° and 43° N. lat. We are not aware
of any estimate of the total production of maple sugar. The Census of
Pennsylvania of 1870 gave the following figures as referring to its
manufacture in that State:—
1850 1860 1870
2,326,525 lb. 2,768,965 lb. 1,545,917 lb.[2695]
_Sorghum_—Another plant of the same order as _Saccharum_ is _Sorghum
saccharatum_ Pers. (_Holcus saccharatus_ L.) a native of Northern
China,[2696] which has of late been much tried as a sugar-yielding
plant both in Europe and North America; yet without any great success,
as the purification of the sugar is accomplished with peculiar
difficulty. As in the sugar cane, there are in sorghum crystallizable
and uncrystallizable sugars, the former being at its maximum amount
when the grain reaches maturity. The importance of the plant however is
rapidly increasing on account of the value of its leaves and grain as
food for horses and cattle, and of its stems which can be employed in
the manufacture of paper and of alcohol.
[2694] _Journ. de Pharm._ i. (1865) 270.
[2695] Consul Kortright, in _Consular Reports_ presented to Parliament,
July 1872, p. 988.
[2696] Introduced into Europe in 1850, by M. de Montigny, French Consul
at Shanghai.—Sicard, _Monographie de la Canne à sucre de la Chine,
dite_ Sorgho à sucre, Marseille, 1856; Joulie, _Journ. de Pharm._ i.
(1865) 188.
=Commerce=—The value of the sugar imported into the United Kingdom is
constantly increasing, as shown by the following figures:—
1868 1870 1872
_Unrefined_ £13,339,758 £14,440,502 £18,044,898
_Refined_ £1,156,188 £2,744,366 £3,142,703
The quantity of _Unrefined Sugar_ imported in 1872 was 13,776,696 cwt.,
of which about 3,000,000 cwt. were furnished by the Spanish West India
Islands, 2,700,000 cwt. by the British West India Islands, 1,800,000
cwt. by Brazil, 1,100,000 cwt. by France, and 960,000 cwt. by Mauritius.
Of _Refined Sugar_ the imports from France and Belgium into the United
Kingdom were—
1874 1875 1876
133,800 102,300 92,044 tons.
=Uses=—Refined sugar is employed in pharmacy for making syrups,
electuaries and lozenges, and is useful not merely for the sake of
covering the unpleasant taste of other drugs, but also on account of a
preservative influence which it exerts over their active constituents.
Muscovado or Raw Sugar is not used in medicine. The dark
uncrystallizable syrup, known in England as _Molasses_, _Golden Syrup_,
and _Treacle_,[2697] and in foreign pharmacy as _Syrupus Hollandicus
vel communis_, which is formed in the preparation of pure sugar by the
influence of heat, alkaline bodies, microscopic vegetation, and the
oxygen of the air, is sometimes employed for making pill masses. The
treacle of colonial sugar alone is adapted for this purpose, that of
beet root having a disagreeable taste, and containing from 19 to 21 per
cent. of oxalate, tartrate and malate of potassium, and only 56 to 64
of sugar.[2698] The treacle of colonial sugar usually contains 5 to 7
per cent. of salts.
[2697] How the word _Treacle_ came to be transferred from its
application to an opiate medicine to become a name for _molasses_, we
know not. In the description of sugar-making given by Salmon in his
_English Physician or Druggist’s Shop opened_, Lond. 1663, treacle is
never mentioned, but only “_melussas_.”
[2698] Landolt, Zeitschr. _für analyt. Chem._ vii. (1868) 1-29.