THE HYVIENIC ADVANTAGES OF NEW BREAD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5056, 15 September 1894, Page 2

THE HYVIENIC ADVANTAGES OF NEW BREAD.

j New bread and tho hot morning roll, have been condemned as injurious and difficult of digestion. However true this charge may be, the use of new bread appeara, even from the hygienic point o£ view, to have some compensating advantages. Dr Troitzlri, writing in the Russian medical periodical Vratch, states that he has found thnt new and uncut bread contains no micro-organisms, aa the heat necessary to bake the bread is sufficient to kill them all. Aa soon, however, as the bread is cut and is allowed io lie about uncovered, not^ only harmless but also pathogenic microbes find in it an excellent nutrient medium. Whit© or wheafcmeal bread is a better -medium than black or rye bread, as the-laUei: contains a greater percentage of! acidity. i>r Troitzki'a experiments wifch pathogenic bacteria gavo the following results : — Streptococcus pyogeneß aureiis retains its vitality on tha crumb ot wheat-meal bread for twentyoight to thirty-ono d&ys, on tho cru3t for twenty to twenty-three daya • tho bacillus of anthrax (without sporeo) remains alive on the erumb for thirty ro thirty-seven, days, and on. tho cruet for thirty-one to thirty-three days; the typhoid bapillus remains active twenty-live to' thirty days on tho crumb, and t??enty-sis to twenty-eigfat on the crast ; whilst tho bacillus of chiolara liv<?3 twenty-threo to iwenty-five or twenty-seven days on both. Oi! special infcereat is tbe fact tbat, if the bread is placed before the experiment for fifteen iniauteu in the <i?sinfectin# own (at a tampemtura of llSoteg C), all the j above-named pathogenic bacteria return j their vitality for several (tour to eight) daya longer. The author explains thia | fact by tho acidity of the broad being i lessoned by tho heat, and the bread becoming a better nutrient medium.