Other forms are: d- and l-gulose, prepared from the lactones of the corresponding gulonic acids, which are obtained from d- and /-glucose by oxidation and inversion; d- and l-idose, obtained by inverting with pyridine d- and l-gulonic acids, and reducing the resulting idionic acids; d- and l-galactose, the first being obtained by hydrolysing milk sugar with dilute sulphuric acid, and the second by fermenting inactive galactose (from the reduction of the lactone of d, l-galactonic acid) with yeast; and d- and l-talose obtained by inverting the galactonic acids by pyridine into d- and l-talonic acids and reduction.
Of the ketoses, we notice d-sorbose, found in the berries of mountain-ash, and d-tagatose, obtained by Lobry de Bruyn and van Ekenstein on treating galactose with dilute alkalis, talose and l-sorbose being formed at the same time.
Lastly, when d-galactonic acid is heated with pyridine, it is converted into talonic acid, which is reducible to talose, an isomeride bearing to galactose the same relation that mannose bears to glucose.