[223] Zeitschrift für physiologische Chemie, Band 13, S. 84.
[224] Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie, 1895, S. 561.
[225] Vid. op. cit., 52, pp. 8 et seq.
[226] Vid. op. cit. supra, p. 15.
[227] Composition of Wood, Agricultural Science, Vol. 7, pp. 49, 97 and 161.
[228] Tollens; Handbuch der Kohlenhydrate: von Lippmann; Chemie der Zuckerarten.
PART FOURTH.
FATS AND OILS.
277. Nomenclature.—The terms fat and oil are often used interchangeably and it is difficult in all cases to limit definitely their application. The consistence of the substance at usual room temperatures may be regarded as a point of demarcation. The term fat, in this sense, is applied to glycerids which are solid or semi solid, and oil to those which are quite or approximately liquid. A further classification is found in the origin of the glycerids, and this gives rise to the groups known as animal or vegetable fats and oils. In this manual, in harmony with the practices mentioned above, the term fat will be used to designate an animal or vegetable glycerid which is solid, and the term oil one which is liquid at common room temperature, viz., about 20°. There are few animal oils, and few vegetable fats when judged by this standard, and it therefore happens that the term oil is almost synonymous with vegetable glycerid and fat with a glycerid of animal origin. Nearly related to the fats and oils is the group of bodies known as resins and waxes. This group of bodies, however, can be distinguished from the fats and oils by chemical characteristics. The waxes are ethers formed by the union of fatty acids and alcohols of the ethane, and perhaps also of the ethylene series.[229] This chemical difference is not easily expressed and the terms themselves often add confusion to the meaning, as for instance, japan wax is composed mostly of fats, and sperm oil is essentially a wax.
278. Composition.—Fats and oils are composed chiefly of salts produced by the combination of the complex base glycerol with the fat acids. Certain glycerids, as the lecithins, contain also phosphorus in organic combinations, nitrogen, and possibly other inorganic constituents in organic forms. By the action of alkalies the glycerids are easily decomposed, the acid combining with the inorganic base and the glycerol becoming free. The salts thus produced form the soaps of commerce and the freed base, when collected and purified, is the glycerol of the trade.