FLOTJJR. 



ORIGIN OF THE TERM "GRAHAM FLOUR." 



When wheat was first ground for human consumption the product 

 obtained was an unbolted wheat meal, which was used for bread 

 making for many centuries. In the course of time, however, attempts 

 were made with more or less success to produce a whiter and more 

 attractive product. At first the amount of bran removed was rela- 

 tively small, consisting only of the coarser particles, but gradually, 

 by improved processes of sifting, more of the bran was removed and 

 the resulting flour was more uniform in appearance and whiter in 

 color. While this flour was still crude as compared with our modern 

 so-called " patent flour " it contained appreciably less ash than the 

 unbolted wheat meal of former times. 



According to Sylvester Graham, who lived from 1794 to 1851, the 

 ancients recognized that the bread made from whole- wheat flour 

 was more conducive to general health and vigor and better adapted 

 to nourish and sustain than bread made from superfine flour, and 

 athletes in those times ate the coarse bread only, and he quoted l 

 HippQcrates, who is recognized as the father of medicine, as com- 

 mending bread made from unbolted wheat meal for its salutary 

 effect upon the bowels. Graham, who was a physician and a student 

 of dietetics, recognized from his practice the efficacy of whole-wheat 

 flour in all disorders of the stomach and bowels. He made the 

 claim in his book that he had never known of a case of diarrhea 

 or of costiveness (even though of years standing) to fail to give way 

 after a coarse wheat bread of a proper character had been substi- 

 tuted for that made of superfine flour, although a great number of 

 cases had come under his notice, and that "the thousands of indi- 

 viduals * * * who within the last eight years (about 1830- 

 1 838) have been benefited by using the coarse wheaten bread 

 instead of that made of superfine flour, are living witnesses of the 

 virtues of that bread." Graham also" quoted Baron Steuben as 

 saying that "the peculiar healthfulness of the Prussian soldiers was 

 in a great measure to be attributed to their ammunition bread made 



Science of Human Life, 1839, vol. 2. 

 67800 Bull. 16413 2 7 



