self a faithful and a vigilant guardian and phyfician." And surely, (as excellently remarked by the Brit. Crit.) in defcribing the progress of VICE, in that pernicious effufion of youthful intemperance the Monk"-1. It is moft vicious, and always unneceffary, to give lufcious and feducing defcriptions of the acts pretended to be cenfured. And 2. In Speaking of a SACRED BOOK, no person who has a spark of religion, or regard for it, will or can ufe fuch expreffions as evidently tend to depreciate it below the most trivial and contemptible works." "And when the MONTHLY Reviewers venture to affert, that "GERMANY has found a long awaited Rational Commentator in her EICHORN, and BRITAIN in her GEDDES," of whom, the former treats the Book of JONAH as "a pious Romance, and "the work afcribed to DANIEL, as 66 a popular legend,"-thefe main pillars of Christianity, and of the most awful figns of the times to Gentiles, Jews, and Chriftians-let them beware, left they be ranked themselves among the profelytes of German Illuminifm, and English Unitarianifm; and draw down the United fcourges of British and in Hebreans; of that" Priesthood,"-the fuppreffion of whofe far from opulent revenues," they represent as a "very Evangelical work of reform." From these excerpts, our readers may judge of the contents of the volume; a farrago, but compofed of "excellent stuff! It is the production of that learned and found Divine of the Irish establishment, Dr. Hales, the author of the Inspector! NATURAL HISTORY, PHYSIOLOGY, MEDICINE. ART. IX. A Treatise on Sugar, with Mifcellaneous Medical Obfervations. By Benjamin Mofeley, M. D. Author of a Treatife on Tropical Difeafes; Military Operations; and the Climate of the West Indies; and a Treatife on Coffee: Physician to Chelsea Hofpital, Member of the College of Phyficians of London, of the University of Leyden, of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, &c. &c. The Second Edition, with confiderable Additions, Robinsons. London. 1800. THE The HE fubject of this treatise must be interefting to almoft every reader for fugar is not only an article of luxury but a neceffary of life; forming a part of the food of almost every individual. treatife is divided into three parts. 1. Hiftory of Sugar Cane. Hiftory of Sugar. 3. On the properties and ufe of Sugar. We fhall lay an abftract of thefe before our readers. 2. The firft Greek writer, who is fuppofed to mention the fugar-cane, is Theophraftus who lived 321 years before the commencement of the Chriftian æra, He mentions a fpecies of honey obtained from canes: and fays that the reed, which grows in Egypt, has fweet roots. Varro, who lived 68 years before Chrift, is fuppofed in the following verfes to allude to the fugar-cane. Indica non magna nimis arbore crefcit arundo ; Allufions Allufions to the fugar-cane are alfo made by Dionyfius Afer, Strabo, Seneca, and Lucan. But none of these writers feem to have feen it, or to have had the smallest notion how fugar was obtained from it. Hence it is evident that the fugar-cane was neither culti vated by the Greeks and Romans, nor by any of the nations with which they were intimately connected. By the Saracens it was tranf-· planted from Arabia, where it seems to have been cultivated pretty early, into Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, and Scicily. From Sicily it was introduced into Italy: the Moors brought it from Africa into Spain., Sugar was made in these countries long before the discovery of America. In Spain the fugar-cane was planted firft in Valencia, and afterwards in Granada and Mexico. In which provinces it was ftill cultivated, in 1664, as Mr. Francis Willoughby informs us in his travels. The Portuguese began to cultivate the fugar-cane in Madeira in 1420; and the Spaniards carried it to the Canaries fomewhat later in the fame century. The fugar-cane was found indigenous in many parts of America and the West Indies, as it has been found more lately in Otaheite and other South-Sea iflands. Sugar, according to Herrara, was firft cultivated in St. Domingo in 1506, and in 1518, as Peter Martyr informs us, there were twenty-eight fugar works on the ifland. Oviedus, who lived in St. Domingo, in 1515, and who was governor of St. Maria in Darien, in 1522, mentions, in his Hiftory of the West Indies, that there was fuch abundance of fugar in Mexico that certain Spanish ships were yearly loaded with it. Now as Mexico was not entirely reduced before the year 1521, our author concludes, from this paffage, that fugar must have been made by the Mexicans before the arrival of the Spaniards. But furely the paffage warrants no fuch conclufior. Between 1533 and 1550 the fugar-cane was cultivated to a confiderable extent in Peru. The Portuguese first established fugar works in 1580. The Dutch carried on the manufacture of fugar in Brazil to a very great extent, and when they were dif poffeffed of that country, in 1655, many of them fled to the Weft Indian islands and taught the inhabitants the proper method of making fugar. The English made fugar in Barbadoes and St. Kitts in 1643; the French in Guadaloupe in 1648. The fugar-cane was planted in Jamaica by the English in 1660, and fugar made from it in 1664. Our author begins his biftory of fugar, as he calls the second part of his treatife, with proving, from the Arabian writers, that the sugar of the Greeks was not the fame fubftance with the facarmambu of the Indians. Diofcorides, who lived in the firft century of the Chriftian æra, is the first Greek writer who mentions fugar. He fays that it is afort of concreted honey found upon canes in India and Arabia Felix, of the confiftence of falt, and brittle between the teeth like falt.Pliny alfo mentions it in the following paffage Sugar is brought from Arabia, but the better fort from India. It is a honey collected from canes, like a gum, white, brittle between the teeth. The largest pieces of it are of the fize of an hazle nut, It is ufed only in medicine. Lib. xii. c. 8. Our author is of opinion that the fugar, made in Arabia, was only the the coarfe or Mufcovado fugar; and he infers from Avicenna that the kind defcribed as white like falt, brittle between the teeth and sweet as honey, was all brought from India. This laft fpecies our author confiders as the fame with what we call white fugar candy. White fugar candy then is the real μελι καλαμίνον, αλς ινδικος and σακχάρου of the ancients. He fuppofes that the fugar cane was firft cultivated, and the method of making fugar candy firft difcovered, in China, from which country the art gradually fpread over India. Sugar candy is ftill the only fpecies of fugar ufed in the east, at least, for purposes of luxury. The art of making loaf-fugar is a modern and European invention, discovered by a Venetian about the end of the 15th century. Some derive the term candy from the island Candia, others from an Arabian word fignifying fugar, others from the Latin word candidum; and Salmafius derives it from xavri, a corrupt Greek word which fignifies angular. Our author supposes that it comes from the Indian word Khand, a common appellation for fugar. He fuppofes alfo that the word fugar is derived from the Indian term bukur, fugar. The Venetians, even before 1148, brought fugar from India by the way of the Red Sea and supplied all Europe with it. The art of refining fugar was firft practifed in England in 1544. Sugar was at first employed only in medicine. Actuarius firft fubftituted it for honey in medicinal compofitions. Diofcorides recommended it as a laxative, a ftrengthener of the ftomach, and as useful for removing pains of the bowels and kidneys. He feems alfo to have used it in powder to take off the opake spots which are sometimes formed on the cornea in cafes of the ophthalmia. Galen recommended it in fevers to allay the thirst of the patient. The ufe of fugar, which had been conftantly gaining ground in Europe, was, in the 16th century, reprobated by Garencieres and Willis, who affirmed that it was exceedingly prejudicial to the health, and afcribed the prevalence of confumption and fcurvy to the general employment of it as an article of food. But though thefe phyficians were joined by Mr. Ray, their opinions never gained many converts. The prevailing opinions, as our author has shown by a profufion of quotations, were that fugar has a tendency to preferve our bodies from putrefaction, that it is useful in the cure of wounds, coughs, afthmas, &c. but that it is prejudicial to the teeth. According to our author, fugar is nourishing in the highest degree. Milk, by the addition of fugar, is made to agree with all ftomachs. Sugar is fo tar from being prejudicial to the teeth, that it is the bafis of many teeth-powders; it is very eafily digefted; it does not create but deftroy worms in children; a friend of the author's was cured of a confumption by living upon fugar-he took to the amount of eight ounces in the day. Sugar refiits putrefaction, and preserves all fubftances, flesh, fruits, and vegetables from corruption. It has a great folvent power, and helps the folution of fat, oily, and incongruous food. It promotes digeftion; it is an excellent vehicle for medicines; it has cured many diseases from impoverished blood, rickets, and fcrofula, which have baffled the moit fkilful phyficians; it is an excellent food for aged perfons, Our author concludes his treatife with an ac count count of the yearly confumption of fugar, which has been conftantly on the increase. The average quantity confumed in Britain annually, between 1787 and 1790, was 185,389,792 pounds; 166,573,340 pounds of which were confumed in England, and 18,816,448 pounds in Scotland. Ireland confumes annually about 31,360,746 pounds. Such is an abstract of Dr. Mosely's Treatife on Sugar. We ought to proceed now to give our opinion concerning its excellencies and defects. But as our authee has, in his preface, given the title of blun dering illiterate purveyors c dullnefs to fome perfons who prefumed to criticise his first edition, he would, no doubt, honour us with the fame name if we were to use the fame liberty. We shall, therefore, leave the task of deciding upon the merits of the book entirely to our readers, or to fuch of them as have no fuch diflike to the name blockhead us we have. It is but fair, however, that we fhould put it in their power to decide the queftion, by laying the whole of the evidence before them. We fhall, therefore, proceed to examine the witneffes in their prefence, and when they have heard all, they may either return their verdict guilty, or not guilty, as they think proper. The merit of a book (works of imagination excluded) depends entirely upon the absence or prefence of the following requifites. 1. New facts. 2. New inferences from eftablished facts. 3. A better arrangement. 4. A more complete collection of facts. 5. En tertainment. When a book is destitute of these requifites it is to be condemned, without mercy, as of no ufe whatever, and immediately fold by weight to the cheesemonger, or configned to any other more bafe and ignoble purpose which the purchafer chufes. When it is not deftitute of them all, it is to be reprieved, acquitted, or applauded, according to the number and importance of the requifites which it poffeffes, and the degree of perfection in which it poffeffes them. Let us fee how far, and in what degree of perfection, the work before us poffeffes thefe requifites. As for the two firft, we have no right to expect them in the two first parts of the Tréatife. For thefe two' parts are hiftorical, and contain, too, the hiftory of past events, and, therefore, every fact muft of neceffity be taken from preceding writers. We are not to blame our author for this, nor to impute it to him as a fault, that he has omitted what he ought not to have inferted. The business of the hiftorian is to weigh oppofite accounts, and to fhew which ought to be believed, and which difregarded. Now our author is not deficient in this respect. He has fhewn that the fugarcane was indigenous in America, and rendered it probable that the fugar of the ancients was the fame with our fugar-candy. He has allo refuted the opinion of Salmafius about the identity of fugar and facarmambu. Some of his attempts of this kind have, indeed, failed. He has not rendered it even probable that the Mexicans understood how to make fugar before the arrival of the Spaniards. In page 16, he fays, "that if we except Mexico, it cannot be doubted that the method of making fugar was unknown in every part of America and * See the author's preface. its islands, until the arrival of the Spaniards." Yet in page 36, he fays, "that it is probable that the art of making fugar was known to the Peruvians before the Spaniards appeared among them." It is highly probable that our readers will confider these paffages as contradicting each other. Let us proceed to the third part on the nature and use of sugar, where we have a better chance of finding the two first requifites. But as the commencement of that part also is historical, we may pass on to the chemical analysis of sugar. "Sugar," fays he, in page 108, "analytically examined, demonftrates phlegm, fpirit, acid, and oil." Here may be a new fact, for any thing we know to the contrary; for we do not pretend to underftand the meaning of the terms.. What is to be understood by spirit in this paffage? If the author mean alcohol, the affertion is not true; if pyromucous acid, it is abfurd. The language wants precision. Such was the language of chemistry, before Bergman introduced into it that accuracy in the use of words which has fince been productive of fuch advantages. "Two pounds of refined fugar produced 1 oz. 36 gr. of a limpid, inodorous, infipid phlegm; 12 oz. 6 dr. of a liquor at firft limpid, then brownish and empyreumatic, then acid, and then urinous; and 6 dr. of them brownish oil. The refiduum weighed 8 oz. 2 dr. and 3 gr. &c." P. 108. This analyfis is at least 40 years old, and was performed by one perfectly ignorant of the experiments of Schrickel, Morveau, Scheele, Lavoifier, Cruikshank, &c. by which so many new facts have been discovered, and so much light thrown on the nature and compofition of fugar. Sugar," continues our author, " is an effential falt, confifting of an acid falt, oil, and earth." This was the opinion of Macquer when he published the firft edition of his Dictionary. It was afterwards improved by Cartheufer, Bucquet, and Schrickel; and, by the experiments of Scheele, Bergman, and Lavoifier, refuted fo completely, more than 15 years ago, that no perfon acquainted with the fubject can maintain it. The next part of the chemical analysis of fugar is Bergman's Treatife on the oxalic acid parts, published in 1776, which our author has inferted verbatim from the English tranflation. We do not fee what connection it has with the fubject. At any rate malic, citric, and acetous acids, and even alcohol and ether, which may be obtained from fugar by certain proceffes, had an equal right to be admitted. In a note, our author expreffes his approbation of Bergman's opinion, that the ufe of lime in refining fugar is to feparate a quantity of oxalic acid which unrefined fugar contains, and h: fhews a good deal of contempt for thofe who are of a contrary opinion. Doubtless, he did not know that this opinion of Bergman was refuted about 17 years ago, by Morveau, in one of the volumes of the Dijon Memoires, fo completely, that, if we recollect right, Bergman himself, with his usual candour, gave up the point. Our author finishes his account of the analyfis of fugar by quoting what |
