The glucose of commerce, which may be regarded as a mixture of grape sugar, maltose and dextrins, is prepared by hydrolysing starch by boiling with a dilute mineral acid.
Glyceric aldehyde, CH 2 OH CH(OH) CHO, was obtained pure by Wohlon oxidizing acrolein acetal, CH 2 CH(OC 2 H 5) 21 and hydrolysing.
Fischer has proposed formulae for the important disaccharoses, and in conjunction with Armstrong devised a method for determining how the molecule was built up, by forming the osone of the sugar and hydrolysing, whereupon the hexosone obtained indicates the aldose part of the molecule.
Boletus edulis, in the Oriental Trehala and in ergot of rye; melibiose, C12H22011, formed, with fructose, on hydrolysing the trisaccharose melitose (or raffinose), C18H32016.5H20, which occurs in Australian manna and in the molasses of sugar manufacture; touranose, C12H22011, formed with d-glucose and galactose on hydrolysing another trisaccharose, melizitose, C,8H32016 2H20, which occurs in Pinus larix and in Persian manna; and agavose, C12H22011, found in the stalks of Agave americana.
There exist in the mud of marshes, rivers and cloacae, &c., however, other anaerobic bacteria which decompose cellulose, probably hydrolysing it first and then splitting the products into carbon dioxide and marsh gas.