32 Report on the Means of Supplying the Poor with Food. 



flour, or that potato bread is not light enough for digestion. The 

 Jew does not labour under indigestion, when he has laid aside his 

 leavened bread during the passover, and substituted in its stead 

 unleavened cakes. The same observation applies to the scones 

 of our own country, and to those of India ; for the natives of that 

 country, from Delhi to Cabool, are scarcely acquainted with any other 

 kind of bread. Biscuits are classed in the same category, and are 

 even given to invalids, when no other variety'of bread can be swallowed 

 by the patient. But it is believed, that all these forms of unfermented 

 bread, may be improved by chemical means, so soon as scientific 

 care shall be bestowed upon this important branch of man's comfort. 

 In London, there is at present an excellent variety of bread baked 

 without fermentation, but deprived of its doughy character, by being 

 raised by the action of muriatic acid upon carbonate of soda. Its 

 taste is perfectly sweet and good, and its digestive property unexcep- 

 tionable. The common salt which is produced by the chemical action, 

 will, undoubtedly, be advantageous.* Butter-milk scones are made on 

 this principle. So far therefore as digestibility is concerned, the scale 

 does not seem to preponderate in favour of fermented bread. Let us 

 suppose them equal, although there may be arguments in favour, even 

 of the unfermented bread. But let us view the question in another 

 aspect, and consider in what panification consists, as it has been 

 called, as if bread could not exist without fermentation. A certain 

 quantity of water and yeast is mixed with flour, and the whole formed 

 into a dough. The latter is exposed to heat. Carbonic acid is dis- 

 engaged, by the action of the yeast upon the sugar of the flour, and 

 alcohol is likewise extricated. In other words, a greater or less propor- 

 tion of the sugar, an important element of the flour, is totally destroyed 

 and dissipated in the air — in the form of fixed air and whiskey. With 

 these considerations before him, Dr. R. D. Thomson had his attention 

 directed to the subject. He was anxious to ascertain, what was the 

 actual amount of loss sustained, in a given quantity of flour. This 

 brings us, therefore, to the economical view of the question. An experi- 

 ment was made, in the bakehouse of Mr. Dodson of Southwark, upon a 

 large scale, with fermented and unfermented bread. The result was, 

 that in a sack of flour, there was a difference of product in favour of 

 the unfermented bread, to the amount of 30 lbs. 13 oz., or in round 

 numbers, a sack of flour would produce 107 loaves of unfermented bread, 

 and only 100 of fermented bread of the same weight. Thus it appears, 

 that in the sack of flour, by the common process of baking, 7 loaves or 

 6 J per cent, are blown to the winds. The question for consideration 

 is, does the loss consist entirely of sugar, or is there any other element 

 of the flour depreciated ? By a mean of 8 analyses of wheat flour from 



* Mr. Henry of Manchester first^ we believe, suggested the idea of this process, at 

 the end of last century, and Dr. Hugh Colquhoun of Glasgow, in 1826, (Annals of 

 Philosophy, xii. N.S.) carried the idea into practice. 



