Report addressed to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, relative to the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers : with appendix of evidence / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.

Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report addressed to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, relative to the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers : with appendix of evidence / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. 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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    duties, and a shilling licence fee would suffice, as with the butchers. There is another point which is worthy of considera- tion, and that is, whether an analyst so appointed might not very fitly be also made the the official adviser of the Crown upon medico-legal matters, as in questions of poisoning, &c. At the present time ordinary medical practitioners, whose education and pursuits by no means adapt them for the work, are expected to make analyses for their preliminary enquiries, much to the obstruction of the course of justice. Such duties, however, should be paid for by fees : they would be special. The fees should be remunerative, and fixed by law. Number of bakers in Islington 146, for a population of about 160,000. Dr. Arthur Hill IIassall, M.D., 74, Wimpole Street. 753. I am a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Doctor in Medicine of the University of London, and Se- nior Physician to the Royal Free Hospital. I have devoted many years to the subject of adulteration, being analyst of the “ Lancet Sanitary Commission/’ and author of the Reports of that Com- mission published under the title of “ Food and its Adultera- tions.” I am also the author of the woi'k entitled “ Adulterations Detected,” and of other works. 754. Having paid much attention to the subject of flour and bread, and their adulterations, and to the manufacture of bread, I readily availed myself of some opportunities offered to me of examining Mr. Stevens’s machine for making dough. It wa3 obvious that if its results were such as were claimed for it, it was an invention likely to j>rove of great value, not only to those practically engaged in the process of bread-making, but to the country at large. 755. A cursory inspection only is sufficient to satisfy any one that its use would be attended with great practical benefits to the journeyman : 1st, by diminishing to a great extent the inhaling of flour dust, which is now unavoidably taken into the lungs in considerable quantities every time that a batch of flour is made into dough, and which cannot but be productive of irritation in the lungs, and must have a tendency to aggravate if not to pro- duce disease ; a certain quantity of carbonic acid gas is also often inhaled at the same time, the effect of which is also of an injurious tendency : 2nd, by enabling him to perform, at a groat mechanical advantage, a portion of his labour which, as now con- ducted in the old manner with the hands and arms, is severe, and, from the position of the workman, is performed at a great mechanical disadvantage. 756. A like cursory inspection is also sufficient to show that, as regards the public, its use would be, in one important respect, highly satisfactory ; namely, by substituting an entirely cleanly process in the kneading of bread, for one which, as hitherto practised, namely, with the hands and arms and the body bending