Alum and Ammonia in Bread.

It having been shown that the flesh of diseased animals gives disease to human beings who consume it, the question arises whether or not it is better to prevent the disease, by protecting against the sale and use of such meat, or to cure those who become diseased, and not only from a sanitary standpoint, but from that of economy, as a commonwealth.

Iowa is a meat-producing State. The trade in diseased cattle is opposed to her prosperity in that regard. The traffic in diseased meat conduces to human diseases. The protection of the public health is one of the most important duties of a government. In most of the countries of Europe laws have been long in existence controlling the sale of food, general in nature, under which municipal governments have supplemented local regulations for inspection. In our own country several States have statutes bearing upon the subject, by which the subject is turned over to State and local boards of health. There is upon the statutes of Iowa a law to prevent the adulteration of food, faulty in its provisions, and worthless, in that it makes no provision for its enforcement. Some means should be provided for inspection, and in the case of meat, it should be done by a competent person, before death and before the meat is offered for sale in the market. There should also be provided methods for the surveillance of all slaughter houses.

ALUM AND AMMONIA IN

BREAD.

It is a well demonstrated fact that much of the flour used, and bread purchased of bakers, contains alum. It is used by bakers in the manufacture of bread to increase the whiteness of the flour. By the use of alum a very bad flour may be made into very white loaves. This opens the door to fraud and unequaled competition. The unscrupulous baker, by the use of alum, is enabled to make from inferior flour as white a loaf as his competitor from the best flour. This mixture is used under the name of "Stuff," which is

Alum and Ammonia in Bread.

alum mixed with common salt, prepared to disguise the nature of the compound. The usual proportion is one part alum to three parts salt.

The presence of alum in baking powders is simply to whiten the flour.

The presence of alum in any quantity sufficient to affect the flour, is injurious. Hassall says:

The use of alum in bread is particularly injurious. It is true it causes the bread to be whiter than it would be otherwise; indeed whiter than was ever intended to be by nature; but it imparts to bread several other properties; thus it hardens the nutritious constituent of the bread, the gluten, and so, on the authority of that great chemist Liebig, renders the bread more indigestible; it enables the baker to adulterate his bread with greater quantities of potatoes and rice than he could otherwise employ; and lastly he is enabled to pass off an inferior, and even a damaged flour, for one of superior quality. The public in judging of the quality of bread by its color-by its whiteness commits a serious mistake; there is little or no connection and qualityin fact, very generally, the whitest bread is the most adulterated. Alum is very apt to disorder the stomach and to occasion dyspepsia.

Dr. Gibbon, of London, says:

I have no hesitation in assigning this use of alum in bread as the chief cause of the frequent constipation, headaches, liver derangements, etc., of those who are dependent on bakers for their bread.

Regarding alum in baking powders, Dr. J. H. Raymond, Sanitary Superintendent, of Brooklyn, New York, in his report to the Board of Health, says:

The effect of alum in baking powders is, beyond doubt, injurious.

S. W. Johnson, Professor of Chemistry at Yale College, says: Bread made with a baking powder containing alum must yield a soluble alumina salt with the gastric juice, and must therefore act as a poison. The manufacture and sale of such poisons ought to be interdicted with heavy penalties.

Henry A. Mott, Jr., Phd. E. M., the well known expert chemist, after thorough experiment with sixteen dogs, in New York, by feeding them biscuit made with alum baking powders, says:

In every case where biscuits made with less than seven times the quantity of alum the baker usually employed, were given to a dog; the dog vomited profusely, and was made very sick.

Alum and Ammonia in Bread.

The eccentric English author of the little book "Death in the Pot," who signs himself "An Enemy to Fraud and Villainy,"

says:

By the use of these ingredients (alum and spirits of vitriol) in bread, tens of thousands of children under three years of age are annually consigned to the grave in this "happy" country.

The logical deduction from this testimony, which might be increased a hundred fold, is, that all baking powder not known to be free from alum should be absolutely discarded from the household.

To detect alum in bread the following is a simple method, and is said to be reliable:

Soak in three or four tablespoonfuls of water a half slice of bread, strain off the water and add to it twenty drops of a strong decoction of logwood. Then add a large teaspoonful of a strong solution of carbonate of ammonium. If alum be present, the mixture will be changed from pink to a laveuder-blue. This test will discover a grain of alum in a pound of bread.

Alum powder can be tested by putting a couple of teaspoonfuls of the powder in a glass of cold water. If no effervescence, that is, bubbling or simmering, takes place, condemn the powder and return it at once.

Some alum powders, however, contain phosphates in combination with alum, and with these brands the following test is simple and sure:

Take one-half teaspoonful of baking powder in lid of say halfpound can; char thoroughly over a strong alcohol flame, a good gas jet, or red hot coals. After charring (that is burning till the whole mass is black) add a teaspoonful of water and place a bright piece of silver coin in the solution. Stir for one minute, then take out the silver. If the powder prove a cream of tartar powder the coin will be bright; if an alum powder it will have sulphur stains.

Now pour a little vinegar into the lid and smell the fumes. Alum powders give off sulphuretted hydrogen, which may be detected by its foul odor resembling that of a spoiled egg.

The adulteration of flour with alum is prohibited in this State; it ought to be in baking powders.

The general opposition to the use of alum in baking powders, has induced manufacturers to resort to other expedients, and we

Alum and Ammonia in Bread.

find, in some powders, the carbonate of ammonia, it being claimed that it has the desired leavening properties, and yet becomes completely volatalized and passes off in the process of baking. At a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, the hygienic quality of preparations for leavening bread was considered. Among them was that of carbonate of ammonia. Dr. Enderman, an eminent chemist, presented a paper giving the result of a series of experiments made in bread baking, using the various baking powders found in the market, and with carbonate of ammonia alone. With the latter he used half a pound of flour, four grains of ammonium carbonate, salt and water to suit; baked seventy-eight minutes. Water from the bread gave a precipitate by boiling and the addition of acetic acid. Water extract of seven and five-tenths grains of bread distilled with soda; result: 1.5 cc., 1.5 normal acid found saturated with saturated by ammonia.

The Dr. says: "The argument of parties who use ammonia has been that during baking the ammonia is completely volatilized, and can therefore do no harm. It is true the literature abounds in statements to this effect, though all of these statements are simply opinions, and not based upon actual experiments. Those in favor of its use do not take into consideration the question of the medicinal nature of ammonia salts. On the other hand, all actual inves tigators have stated that the ammonia is not dissipated from the bread in baking; and the general explanation so far has been, that the ammonia carbonate at first dissociated at first by heat is, on cooling, re-condensed by the formation of ammonia bicarbonate, and thus stays in the bread. All those have found it necessary to consider the action of ammonia and its salts upon the human system. Chemistry shows:

1. The ammonia is retained by the gluten in chemical combination.

2. The gluten is, by reason of this combination, altered in its chemical properties.”

This is the demonstration of the chemical degeneration of the gluten in bread by its permanent absorption of ammonia furtively conveyed in baking powders.

The consensus of the debate which followed the presentation of Dr. Enderman's new and important demonstration, by the medical

Alum and Ammonia in Bread.

members upon the effect of ammonia on the human system was in accord with Dr. Enderman, and the universal judgment against the use of ammonia in baking powder. That is, that ammonia is an excrement, and not a nutriment. It is a body which in the system may form urea by loss of water, while urea may again form ammonium carbonate by combination with water. But ammonia in quantity is found in blood or urine only in disease. The ammonia or its carbonate neutralizes the gastric juice, and therefore interferes with digestion. Van Hassett speaks of ammonia as a poison, and and of acute poisoning and chronic poisoning by ammonia. He defines chronic poisoning as follows: "Primitive chronic poisoning by ammonia may ensue from either too long continued use of carbonate ammonia or chloride of ammonium, or its use in too high medicinal doses."

The symptom is gastritis chronica, with secondary symptoms arising from the degeneration of the blood. Half a drachm of chloride of ammonia kills a rabbit within one hour, (Mitscherlich).

Prof. Geo. F. Barker, M. D., of the University of Pennsylvania, president of the Society, said in reply to another member who sought to apologize for the use of ammonia on the ground that only a small quantity was used in baking powder: "No matter how small the quantity, I must decline to be dosed medically without my consent when taking my meals."

E. H. Bartley, M. D., formerly chemist of the Brooklyn Board of Health, and a member of the Society, says: "As this drug is not wholly expelled from the dough in the baking process, and as most medical authorities agree as to the injurious effects resulting from continued use of ammonia, its use in bread should be strongly condemned."

Winslow Anderson, M. D., medical department of the University of California, says it is his opinion that the American disease of dyspepsia is due to the use of baking powders containing ammonia and other adulterants.

The latest investigations regarding ammonia have been made by Prof. Pettenkofer, of Munich, well known by all medical men and scientists. He says. "Three parts of ammonia in ten thousand parts of air is, for unaccustomed human beings, the highest bearable quantity. The poisonous action of ammonia, like that of