[18] Vid. op. cit. 6, p. 96.
[19] Journal of Analytical and Applied Chemistry, Vol. 7, p. 65, and Journal of the American Chemical Society, March 1893.
[20] Vid. op. cit. 16.
[21] Vid. op. cit. 6, p. 99.
[22] Vid. op. cit. 6, p. 103.
PART SECOND.
SUGARS AND STARCHES.
44. Introduction.—Carbohydrates, of which sugars and starches are the chief representatives, form the great mass of the results of vegetable metabolism. The first functions of the chlorophyll cells of the young plant are the condensation of carbon dioxid and water. The simplest form of the condensation is formaldehyd, CH₂O. There is no convincing evidence, however, that this is the product resulting from the functional activity of the chlorophyll cells. The first evidence of the condensation is found in more complex molecules; viz., those having six atoms of carbon. It is not the purpose of this work to discuss the physiology of this process, but the interested student can easily find access to the literature of the subject.[23] When a sample of a vegetable nature reaches the analyst he finds by far the largest part of its substance composed of these products of condensation of the carbon dioxid and water. The sugars, starches, pentosans, lignoses, and celluloses all have this common origin. Of many air-dried plants these bodies form more than eighty per cent.
In green plants the sugars exist chiefly in the sap. In plants cut green and quickly dried by artificial means the sugars are found in a solid state. They also exist in the solid state naturally in certain sacchariferous seeds. Many sugar-bearing plants when allowed to dry spontaneously lose all or the greater part of their sugar by fermentation. This is true of sugar cane, sorghum, maize stalks, and the like. The starches are found deposited chiefly in tubers, roots or seeds. In the potato the starch is in the tuber, in cassava the tuber holding the starch is also a root, in maize, rice and other cereals the starch is in the seeds. The wood-fibers; viz., pentosans, lignose, cellulose, etc., form the framework and support of the plant structure. Of all these carbohydrate bodies the most important as foods are the sugars and starches, but a certain degree of digestibility cannot be denied to other carbohydrate bodies with the possible exception of pure cellulose. In the following paragraphs the general principles of determining the sugars and starches will be given and afterwards the special processes of extracting these bodies from vegetable substances preparatory to quantitive determination.
45. Nomenclature.—In speaking of sugars it has been thought best to retain for the present the old nomenclature in order to avoid confusion. The terms dextrose, levulose, sucrose, etc., will therefore be given their commonly accepted significations.