Report on the adulteration of bread / by Septimus Gibbon.

  • Gibbon, Septimus.
Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the adulteration of bread / by Septimus Gibbon. 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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    constipation, headaches, liver derangements, &c., of those who are dependent on bakers for their bread. The fatal diarrhoea of infants under three years of age may also have arisen from, or have been aggravated by, this cause. As this adulteration has been praetised for a very great length of time, I cannot recommend the adoption of any harsh measures for its suppression; I would suggest that aU bakers in the district should be cautioned against it. If any flagrant case occurs where the injury to health is clearly made out, I shall feel it to be my duty to advise your Board to take the necessary proceedings to prevent its recurrence. When the bakers are duly informed of this opinion, I am in hopes that they will of their own accord cease to use alum in making bread. The bakers’ plea at present is that it is harmless, that the public “ like it,” and “ wiU have it.” So that the more effectually to put down an adulteration which is injurious to health, the public on their part should cease to set so high a value on those qualities in a loaf, which alum is used to produce. The following particulars will, I trust, enable the purchaser to distin- guish a loaf that does not contain alum from one which does:— Alum increases the whiteness and firmness of the bread made from inferior flour, and thereby causes it to resemble bread made from the very best flour. The qualities which alum imparts to a loaf are very unimportant, having reference merely to the appearance, “lightness,” neatness of shape, &c. The chemical action of alum on moistened flour is analogous to tan- ning, and destroys in a considerable degree its nutritiveness. It converts the gluten (the most nutritious portion) of the flour into a kind of tough tenacious “ wash leather,” which is dilficult of digestion. This gives the dough a tenacity and firmness, enabling it to retain the thousand of little air bubbles (given off by the yeast) which constitutes the “ lightness ” or spongy porous character of the bread. Hence flour that will not “rise,” may be made to do so by means of* alum. Another object in the use of alum is that it preserves the upright form of the loaves, and prevents them from adhering firmly together, thereby enabling the baker to separate them more readily on their removal from the oven—the “batch parts clean,” as the expression is,' without tearing. An unalumed loaf is, with a little practice, distinguishable fr’om an alumed one by its appearance alone, it is wanting in all those peculiarities which I have mentioned as the effects of alum—it is not so bulky nor so symmetrical in its shape: its sides are roughened and torn in being separated from the batch. Unalumed bread “ bites short,” alumed bread “ bites tough,” and the rough sour taste