A vindication of saccharin : the French reports refuted, its harmless proved and certified by the highest authorities in the world.
- Wilson, Salamon & Co.
- Date:
- 1888
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A vindication of saccharin : the French reports refuted, its harmless proved and certified by the highest authorities in the world. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![saying, that he could confirm the marked advantages of saccharin as a substitute for sugar in the aHmentation of diabetics. It is much appreciated by patients, who find that it has a savour identical with that of sugar, of which it has none of the inconveniences. Although it does not appear to have any noxious action, it cannot be employed like sugar as an aliment, because it passes through the economy and is eliminated by the urine without being assimilated or transformed. It should further be stated that the experiments upon which this commission based its report were all extra corporeal. The one fact upon which they considered themselves entitled to condemn the employment of saccharin being that they found that it retarded the conversion of starch into sugar by means of diastase, and from this they argued that it would have a similar influence upon the digestive functions.* Medical men will best be able to appreciate the value of such an inference from such an experiment, which is certainly not enhanced by the fact that it was conducted, not upon the quantity of saccharin which could by any possibility be taken in an ordinary diet, but with a quantity which, when translated into its sugar equivalent, amounts to about eleven pounds in weight. The mere fact of its intense sweetness prohibits the possibility of such an excessive quantity^ being] used for any of the above-mentioned purposes. It is not altogether foreign to the question to ask what effect eleven pounds of cane or beet-sugar, taken at one time, Vould exercise upon the digestive functions ? It is not unworthy of note that saccharin has hitherto been manufactured almost exclusively in Germany, whence the bulk of that employed in France was originally derived. Saccharin is condemned by the Commission of the Conseil as bemg dangerous to health. Yet this same Conseil have granted to M. Garnier, a chemist of Paris, a certificate in respect of a material called Sucre *Dr. Pavy says (see page 14), The roost specific charge against it is that it may interfere with digestion through the antiseptic power vvilh which it is endowed. T/ie ansivcr to this is, that it becomes quickly absorbedfromlt/ie digestive system, to be eliminated from the body in an unchanged state, and thus 'does not remain ivithin the sphere 0/capacity for operaiing in the manner alleged.'](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22278862_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
