Feb, 27, 1879] 



NATURE 



387 



We are pleased not only that oxir contemporary should 

 bear such hearty testimony to the energy and success of 

 Dr. Appleton, in promoting the cause which he had at 

 heart, but that it should be able to refer to the subject of 

 endowment of research not only without bitterness, but 

 with even some slight measure of approval. A cause 

 which had so pure-minded, clear-sighted, and widely- 

 cultured a man as Dr. Appleton on its side, must surely 

 have some solid reasons in its favour. 



Dr. Appleton is ackno<vledged by all who knew him to 

 have been one of the most even-tempered of men. He was 

 always cheerful and complaisant ; opposition and even 

 rudeness did not ruffle him ; he returned to the charge 

 smiling at every blow. He was a very quick and ready 

 manager in such work as that of an editor, being full of 

 suggestion, and prompt at meeting difficulties. He was a 

 genuine philosopher, though he professed keen interest in 

 all departments of knowledge, he did not make the 

 mistake of over-estimating his own knowledge, or of 

 pretending to an encyclopaediac mind. His great merit is 

 that he really gave time and strength for "ideal " ends. 



PRISON BREAD 



IN two former papers ^ I discussed the dietetic value 

 and chemical composition of brown bread and of 

 aerated bread. The recent report - of the Committee 

 appointed to inquire into the dietaries of the prisons in 

 England and Wales having called public attention to the 

 subject of the nourishment contained in different varieties 

 of bread, the suggestions made in that report may be 

 suitably considered at the present time. 



On pages 21, 22, 23, 38, and 39 of the report will be 

 found the statements and figures as to the bread question, 

 which I propose to criticise on the present occasion. 

 The committee begin by stating that " the flesh-formers 

 in white bread amount to 7 or 8 per cent., according to 

 the quality of the wheat of which it is made. In bread 

 containing the envelopes (of the grain) they amount to 

 about 10 per cent." Two or three years ago little fault 

 could have been found with these statements ; indeed, 

 the Committee appear here as in other parts of their 

 report, to have drawn some of their facts and figures 

 from a work of my own on Food, published in 1876 

 for the Science and Art Department. Still I am not 

 now prepared, in the light of the most recent analyses 

 of wheat and its mill-products, to endorse the statement 

 that brown bread, whether made so as to include all the 

 flour, middlings, sharps, pollard, and bran, produced 

 from a given weight of wheat, or with all these materials 

 minus the coarse bran, will contain on the average 10 

 per cent, of flesh-formers. Why, there are some varieties 

 of wheat, beautiful, plump, soft, white, floury wheats, 

 which do not contain more than 8 per cent, of total 

 nitrogenous matters of all kinds, including veritable flesh- 

 formers. How then can a wheat of this kind, if simply 

 ground up (whether the 4 per cent, of long bran it yields 

 be included in or excluded from the bread), be made to 

 yield a brown bread or whole meal bread containing 

 more flesh-forming matter than 5^ per cent. ? For the 

 meal will have taken up nearly one half its own weight 

 of additional water, and will now be proportionately more 

 dilute as to all its nutrients. 



And, again, I have previously pointed out that the 

 coverings of the wheat grain contain, in varying, yet 

 considerable proportions, nitrogenous compounds to 

 which the flesh-forming property cannot be rightly 

 attributed. Thus, it may easily happen that the inclu- 

 sion of the 14 or 15 per cent, of mill products, usually 

 rejected in bread-making (excluding the long bran), may 

 not appreciably influence the proportion of flesh-formers 

 in the loaf. These two considerations do not, in my 

 opinion, lessen the desirability of substituting whole meal 



' Nature, vol. xviii. p. 229. and vol. xix. p. 17^. 

 Report of Committee on Uietaries in Prisons, 1878 



bread for white bread in our prisons, but they invalidate 

 some of the Committee's calculations as to the amounts of 

 flesh-formers supplied in the new prison-dietaries, and 

 they further suggest a method of adjusting the nutrient 

 ratio which should subsist between the nitrogenous and 

 carbonaceous constituents of the day's ration. I will 

 briefly discuss these two points. 



We are told (on page 38) that 7 lbs. per week of bread 

 will furnish the prisoner with 9072 ounces of flesh- 

 formers. Now, if the bread referred to be that recom- 

 mended by the reporters, 7 lbs. should furnish, according 

 to their own showing, no less than 1 1 'i ounces of flesh- 

 forming nitrogenous matters. For they affirm such 

 bread to contain on the average 10 per cent, of flesh- 

 formers, and so the weekly allowance of 7 lbs. or 112 

 ounces of bread would furnish 1 1 '2 ounces of these nutrients. 

 They appear, however, to have assumed the bread in 

 use to contain not 10, but only 8"i per cent of flesh- 

 formers — at least, in the absence of direct analytical 

 data, I deduce this figure from the calculated amounts of 

 nitrogenous substance tabulated in the report. Indeed, 

 I conclude that they have not made the fresh calculations 

 rendered necessary by the altered composition of the 

 proposed bread, but have adopted the old figures of 

 Playfair and other writers on this subject. But taking 

 average whole meal bread made as directed by the re- 

 porters, and from ordinary wheats, it would not be safe 

 to reckon upon it containing as much as 8'i per cent, of 

 true flesh-forming material— my own experiments put it at 

 a little above 7. But granted the higher figure, we then 

 find that the prisoners with hard laboiur (with 7 days' con- 

 finement) receive no more than 14 ounces of flesh- 

 formers to 96 of heat givers, reckoned as starch, during 

 a week. The ratio here is i to 68, which differs too 

 widely from the normal ratio (i : 4^) to afford satisfactory 

 sustenance to men expected to do hard work. 



There are, however, two ways out of this difficulty. WTiy 

 should not a part of the fine flour be excluded from the con- 

 stituents of the meal for prison bread ? Or again, why 

 should not biscuit flour, tailings, and middhngs be added 

 to it from other sources ? And the same result might be 

 ensured, and the flesh-formers be at the same time more 

 adequately represented in the bread, if care were taken to 

 choose for prison meal the hard, homy and tail wheats, 

 which are always more nitrogenous than the white, opaque 

 and soft grains. It is true that sonr;e of these hard, trans- 

 lucent \vheats, especially when they owe their character 

 to unripeness or a wet season, contain a larger proportion 

 than usual of non-albuminoid nitrogen, but in spite of 

 this their percentage of true flesh-formers is always high. 

 It would be quite easy, by chemical analysis of the 

 samples of grain offered by contract to the authorities, 

 always to secure a wheat containing 13 to 14 per cent, of 

 true flesh-formers, and therefore capable of producing a 

 bread with at least 9 per cent. 



There are two other remarks suggested by reading the 

 part of this report on Prison Dietaries which relates to 

 bread. The Committee is clearly right when it urges the 

 desirability of including most of the coarser mill products 

 of wheat in the meal on account of the phosphates thus 

 secured. And the proposed plan is a good one, of making 

 the dough of the finer mill products only at first, and then 

 introducing, when the dough is nearly ready for the oven, 

 the middlings, sharps, and pollard ; again, kneading the 

 mass as quickly as possible, and then baking it. The 

 excessive solidity and stickiness of most whole meal 

 bread is thus avoided, since the ferments present in the 

 seed coats of the grain have but little time to exert their 

 action upon the starch of the flour. A. H. CHURCH 



ISOMORPHISM 



AT the regular meeting of the Berlin Chemical Society 

 on February 10, Prof. Hermann Kopp, of Heidel- 

 berg, delivered an address upon " Isomorphism." Prof. 



