FOODS — HUMAN NUTRITION. 61 



" The salts of the pickling fluids have a marked inhibitory action on the ham- 

 souring bacillus, and sours occur less frequently in regular-cure hams. In 

 regular-cure hams the growth of the ham-souring bacillus is restricted and 

 often completely inhibited as a result of the additional pumping which these 

 hams receive, whereby they are more or less saturated with pickle at the 

 beginning of the cure. . . . 



" Under the present methods of curing, the partly pumped or mild-cure hams 

 furnish the greater proi)ortion of the sours, as the.«e hams are not pumped in 

 the body and the growth of the liam-seuring bacillus within the bodies of these 

 hams is not interfered with until the curing i)ickle has penetrated from the 

 outside. . . . The percentage of souring in the mild-cure hams could be greatly 

 reduced without materially affecting the cure by pumping these hams with their 

 own curing pickle. . . . 



"The only way by which ham souring could be entirely eliminated from the 

 larger packing establishments under the present methods of curing would be to 

 handle the hams throughout under aseptic conditions, and this, for obvious 

 reasons, would be an impossibility. The losses fron; ham souring mny be ma- 

 terially reduced, however, by greater care in handling the hams and the adop- 

 tion of precautionary measures designed to prevent the introduction of con- 

 taminated foreign matter into the bodies of the hams, together with more 

 thorough methods of pumping.' 



Refrigeration of fresh and other meats in transit, D. I. Davis (i. Cong. 

 iHtcrnat. FroUl, [ParU\, Rait, ct Commun., 1908, III, pp. 589-503, pis. 2).— A 

 discussion of methods followed in ship[)ing meat in the United States. 



Additional experiments on the g'lucose of eg'gs and its biological signifi- 

 cance, V. UiAMAKE {Scpuraic from Rend. Accad. Set. Fis. c Mai. Napoli, 3. ser., 

 16 (1910), No. 7-9, pp. 2.'i2-2.',.'i; ahs. in Chem. Zenlhl., 1910, II, No. 2J,, p. 

 1763). — The author studied the occurrence of sugar in hen's eggs and turtle 

 eggs. In eggs almost fully developed, dialyzable sugar was found in a quantity 

 as great as or greater than that' of the hydrolyzable sugar. In eggs not fully 

 developed the latter was more abundant, while in very small eggs no glucose 

 was identified. 



The use of refrig^eration in bread making, E. Buandeis (1. Cong. Intcrnat. 

 Froid, [Parish, Rap. et Commun., 1908, III, pp. 98-112). — On the basis of ex- 

 perimental data the importance of artificial refrigeration in modern bakeries 

 is discussed. According to the author, low temperature hinders the deteriora- 

 tion of stored materials, lessens the danger from explosions, favors the change 

 of gluten into soluble material by the agency of the enzym present in the flour, 

 lessens the acid content of bread, acts favorably upon the bread-making quality 

 of the flour, and is beneficial in other ways. 



Experiments regarding sterilizing flour with reference to panary fer- 

 mentation, A. J. J. Vandevelde (.lcaf7. Roy. Belg., Bui. CI. ScL, 1910, No. 7, 

 pp. 597-610). — In connection with a study of the function of different organ- 

 isms concerned in panary fermentation some experiments are reported in which 

 flour was sterilized with a mixture of chloroform and acetone and with for- 

 malin. 



The chloroform-acetone mixture seemed to destroy all the organisms present 

 in the flour with the exception of BaciJlus mesenterwus lulgatus, but it also 

 modified the properties of the gluten. Formalin proved to be either insufficient 

 as a sterilizing agent or enough remained in the flour to prevent its subsequent 

 use as a culture medium. The conclusion was therefore reached that satisfac- 

 tory means have not as yet been found for sterilizing flour, and the author pro- 

 poses to continue his observations. 



