NovEMBER 30, 1916] 
NATURE 
251 
wheat which is thereby effected. Taking the in- 
creased yield of flour at 5°3 per cent., the new 
regulation will result in only 93 parts of wheat 
being required instead of roo in order to yield the 
same amount of flour and bread as hitherto pro- 
duced. This is a saving in wheat requirements 
of 7 per cent. Against this must be placed the 
loss of offals production. This will be diminished 
in two ways: first, by the actual milling of less 
wheat for the same amount of flour, and, secondly, 
by a less percentage of offals from the quantity 
of wheat milled. The result will be a diminution 
of the output of offals by 23 per cent. Their 
feeding value will also be reduced by the abstrac- 
tion of the most nutritive portion and its trans- 
ference to the flour-sack. 
It will be observed that the new regulations 
cover two distinct points: the first is that of 
length of flour yield; the second is that all the 
flour is to be straight-run—that is, there is to be 
only one even quality. It would be quite possible 
to prescribe the proportion of flour to be ex- 
tracted and still to permit the miller to subdivide 
such flour into two or more qualities. If this 
were done, the whole of the offal would be con- 
centrated in the lower grade. There would thus 
be a white flour of the present “patents” or 
“supers ”’ type, and a very dark flour. Possibly 
there is a fear that the darker flour would be so 
accentuated in character as to be objectionable. 
There would, however, be one benefit: as a result 
of the higher price that could be obtained for the 
better quality, the lower grade could be sold very 
much more cheaply, and so the extremely poor 
would reap an advantage. 
This leads us, naturally, to the question of 
quality of the new straight-run flour. The writer 
has already had the opportunity of examining and 
testing samples submitted by various millers. 
Such flours are not quite so good commercially 
as the 7o per cent. straight-run flour, but are 
better than present ordinary household grades. 
Compared with the latter, the new flour contains 
the small proportion of included offal, but this is 
more than balanced by the retention of the whole 
of the patent flour. Properly milled from sound 
wheats, this flour should be found suitable for the 
manufacture of all forms of bread and cakes, and 
also for general home-cooking requirements. 
The question is being asked: But if 7o per 
cent. can be increased to 75 per cent., why not an 
80 per cent., or even an 85 per cent. flour? In 
reply it may be well to put-on record the reasons 
why both the makers and users of flour have 
gravitated to adoption of the whiter sorts. The 
miller finds that the freer a flour is from offal, the 
better it keeps. This especially holds with regard 
to germ, which very quickly causes deterioration 
in the flour. Then both the germ and the offal 
are powerfully diastatic in character, and flours in 
which they are present tend to make a much more 
sodden and clammy loaf than does a white flour. 
But a yet more serious objection is the greater bac- 
teriological impurity of the darker flour. Acidity 
develops during fermentation to a much greater 
NO. 2457, VOL. 98] 
extent in dark than in white flours; in consequence 
the darker flour is much more liable to produce 
sour bread. Again, such organisms as B. colt 
communis are frequently present on wheat, with 
the result in milling that they are absent from the 
highest-grade flour, present in small quantity in 
that of medium grade, and abundant. in whole- 
meal. 
The general consensus of scientific opinion goes 
to show that the bread from white flour is superior 
in nutritive value to that from the darker kinds. 
This is vouched for by physicians such as the late 
Sir Lauder Brunton, and such physiological inves- 
tigators as Rubner of Munich, Snyder of Minne- 
sota, and Hutchison of the London Hospital. 
The general demand of the public is for white 
bread, and Hutchison sums up most pertinently 
the great importance which must be attached to its 
decision on problems of nutrition :—‘“In the last 
resort, therefore, we are driven for guidance to 
the results yielded by actual analysis of the diets 
selected by healthy persons. The value of such 
results must not be underestimated. Men have 
found out by long experience what is the best 
diet, better, perhaps, than science can tell them.” 
For these reasons any further step in the direc- 
tion of an additional increase in the flour to be 
extracted from wheat, and consequently darker 
bread, should not be taken unless from absolute 
necessity. The resultant flour would be less 
nutritious, darker in colour, and more difficult to 
bake into a sound and satisfactory loaf. It would 
be less attractive and appetising; and in propor- 
tion as bread forms the principal article of diet 
the change would be the more keenly felt. The 
poorest classes would therefore be the most 
adversely affected of the whole of the community. 
WirtiaM Jaco. 
SCIENCE AND THE CIVIL SERVICE. 
HE Lords Commissioners of his Majesty’s 
Treasury have appointed a Committee to 
consider and report upon the existing scheme of 
examination for Class I. of the Home Civil 
Service. The terms of reference are :— 
To submit for the consideration of the Lords Com- 
missioners of his Majesty’s Treasury a revised scheme 
such as they may judge to be best adapted for the 
selection of the type of officer required for that class 
of the Civil Service, and at the same time most ad- 
vantageous to the higher education of this country; 
and, in framing such a scheme, to take into account, 
so far as possible, the various other purposes which 
the scheme in question has hitherto served, and to 
consult the India Office, the Foreign Office, and the 
Colonial Office as to their requirements, in so far as 
they differ from those of the Home Civil Service. 
The members of the Committee 
follows :— 
Mr. Stanley Leathes, C.B., First Civil Service 
Commissioner (chairman). 
Sir Alfred Ewing, K.C.B., F.R.S., Vice-Chan- 
cellor of the University of Edinburgh. 
Sir Henry A. Miers, F.R.S., Vice-Chancellor 
of the University of Manchester. 
are as 
