BAKERS AND DISEASE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 September 1925, Page 2

BAKERS AND DISEASE.

ALLEGATIONS DENIED. THE USE OF CHEMICALS. LONDON, Aug. 19. The Bakers’ Conference, has ordered an inquiry to he made into the prevalence of dermatitis among operatives, and an effort will be made to discover whether the complaint, is aggravated by the use of chemicals in baking. It was pointed out that there was more dermatitis in South Wales than in all the rest of the United'. Kingdom. Many men were working dough with their aims swathed in bandages. Delegates deplored the existence of unhygienic conditions. A Londoner asserted that operatives . frequently were compelled to wash themselves in pails used in connection .with.. baking. Master bakers deny the allegations of filthy bakehouse conditions- and the prevalence of dermatitis, declaring that there are only eight cases among 30,000 London operatives. Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, the noted medical authority, state® that hfe believes the chemicals used in milling inferior grades of .flour probably would aggravate skin diseases. Bakers, he says, could improve their own health by more judicious dieting, while consumers eventually would realise that the only safe bread was tbat made either from whole meal or rye.