GLUCOSE, glolc6s (from Gr. yXvetc, sweet), in the cotnmercial sense, a very thick syrupy liquid obtained by the partial hydrolyz ing of starch, sometimes called cereal syrup)); when in solid state, known as grape-sugar or °cereal sugar?' In Europe it is chiefly made from potato starch, but in the United States it is made almost exclusively from corn; whence its popular name °corn syrup.° In color it ranges from water white to brownish, usually a light amber. It is sweet to the taste but has no distinct flavor. Nature's process of changing the starch stored in the cells of plants into dif ferent forms of sugar was early recognized. In the case of cane-sugar (sucrose) it was known that the plant absorbs carbonic acid from the air ; other acids from the soil ; and by the aid of the sun's heat a chemical process is evolved that puts into the sugar-plant sucrose or cane-sugar, and into fruits and vegetables fruit-sugar which is found more plentifully in the grape than in any other fruit.
The chemist has endeavored to obtain sugar from starch by a somewhat analogous process, and one similar to that carried on in the human system during the process of digestion, when starch is changed into sugar. Cane-sugar and fruit-sugar as they exist in cane and fruits are natural products, but whether nature's order of combining the various articles composing fruit sugar as found in fruits is the same as the order of combination followed by the chemist in making sugar from starch is a debatable question. Some claim that while the glucose of fruits and glucose as obtained by the chemist may be identical so far as their constituent ele ments are concerned and the proportion of each which is present, it does not follow that they are the same thing, or that their dietetic value is equal. Neither does it follow that because the chemical composition of true glucose (dextrose) is almost identical with that of cane-sugar (su crose) its food value is quite as evenly matched.
Nature and In the laboratory of nature the starch or gum (Caveat) which is formed in the plant is treated by carbonic add taken from the air, -and by other acids absorbed from the soil and carried into the plant by the sap, and through the action of light and heat is changed into cane-sugar (sucrose) CeHeOn.
Art or chemistry takes starch from corn (maize), treats it with hydrochloric or other acid (which is afterward neutralized or re moved the resultant product being glucose Ca.tiss0e, differing in its constituent ele
ments from cane-sugar in that it contains one more equivalent of water. If to C1H,e0e (cane-sugar) is added H2O, it is equal to twice Cale°. or glucose CiiHeOu. °It remains? said a prominent manufacturer of glucose, °for some one to discover means for eliminating from glucose the one equivalent of water ; and, that found, chemistry can make from starch an article the chemical formula for which is ex actly like cane-sugar. And somebody will some day stumble'over the method.° History of It was in 1792 that Lowitz announced that there was other than cane-sugar, he having obtained dextrose, a dif ferent variety, from grapes. In 1811 Kirchhof, in Russia, in the attempt to find a substitute for gum arabic, obtained dextrose from starch by the action thereon of dilute sulphuric acid. By similar process Braconnot, in 1819, obtained it from linen rags, sawdust or other vegetable fibre. During the reign of Napoleon Bona parte starch-sugar was made to make good the deficiency which the continental blockade caused in the supply of cane-sugar. Early in the 19th century it was made from potato-starch in Germany, and during the latter half in France. ' From 1825 to the present time the chemists of France, Germany and the United States have studied to improve processes, but nowhere in the world is glucose made so perfectly and at so low a cost •as in the United States, where raw material is cheap, and the processes of manufacture so perfected that this country is fast meeting the European demand for glucose and causing the industry to dwindle in conti nental Europe. This country can manufacture glucose, send it to Europe, pay a 30 per cent tariff and then undersell the makers of Europe, the proof of which is the statement which fol lows showing the exports of glucose from the United States. From 1838 the number of fac tories in France and Germany increased until 40 years later there were 85, and in the Austrian Empire, where the industry began about 1840 or a few years earlier, over 100. In 1889 Ger many had 30 'glucose factories which produced 34,684,100 kilos glucose syrup and 2,748,000 kilos couleur.