Abstract
Sugars have probably been looked upon with more interest than any other class of organic compounds. From the analytical standpoint there has been an abundant amount of excellent work. Brown and Zerban (l) mention that the analysis of sugars with phenols and hydrochloric acid frequently offers a most rapid as well as most reliable method for detecting sugar groups. Ihl (2) discovered that a solution of aldo- pentose sugars gave, upon heating with an equal volume of concentrated hydrochloric acid and a little phloroglucinol, a beautiful violet-red color. In 1887 Seliwanoff (3) reported that one could distinguish ketose from aldose sugars. He found that resorcinol and hydrochloric acid yield a red color with ketoses and a yellow color with aldoses. Pinoff (4) in 1905 developed a color test with alpha-napthoi that differentiated sugars containing ketone group from aldose sugars.