WI LLIAM 
 
 THOMPSON 
 SEDGWICK 
 
 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
 UCSB LIBRARY 
 X-
 
 ON THE 
 
 HEALTHY MANUFACTURE 
 OF BREAD. 
 
 ir on tfje Astern of 3Dc. HDaug;li0f), 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 ILonBon : 
 
 BAILLIERE, TINDALL, & COX, 
 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1884. 
 [A II rights reset ved. ]
 
 Printed by Hazetl, Watson, and I'iney, Limited, London and Aylcslmry
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREFATORY . 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION OF THE RADICAL CHANGE 
 IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BREAD BY HIS 
 
 METHOD ........ 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 MANUFACTURE OF BREAD BY FERMENTATION. . I"] 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY TOWARDS THE MANU- 
 FACTURE OF AERATED BREAD . 25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE ORIGINAL DAUGLISH PROCESS . 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS 
 
 3 2
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 WHEAT BREAD AND FLOURS . . 49 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 FERMENTATION AND AERATION A CONTRAST. . 58- 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY ADVANTAGES TO THE 
 WORKMEN BY THE AERATED SYSTEM OF BREAD 
 MANUFACTURE 68 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PUBLIC ADVANTAGES OF AERATED BREAD, IN 
 
 RELATION TO HEALTH 8 1 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 A BRIEF PERSONAL OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 DR. DAUGLISH . . . . . -97
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 a time when the public mind 
 has become most attentive to all 
 subjects having reference to do- 
 mestic sanitation, I have thought 
 it would be opportune to publish a short 
 work on the labours of the late Dr. Daug- 
 lish, and on his system of bread manufacture. 
 What claim I have to speak upon this 
 subject rests on the following facts : 
 
 In 1862, while conducting The Social 
 Science Review, I wrote an article in that 
 paper on modern bread making. Dauglish, 
 as ingenious and earnest a sanitarian, as well 
 as social reformer, I ever remember to have 
 met, called upon me thereupon to explain his 
 method of bread making, then in its first
 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 days. He entirely gained my attention to 
 it, and awakened an interest which has never 
 abated. Actuated by what he told me, I was 
 tempted to institute inquiries on a subject of 
 which I previously knew very little, and was 
 led to contribute further articles on bread 
 manufacture, and on the grievances to which 
 the bakers of the metropolis were subjected. 
 
 A lecture in the old Hanover Square 
 Rooms, on March lyth, 1864, over which 
 lecture Lord Ebury presided, drew my mind 
 still closer to the study of bread manufacture. 
 The lecturer was a master baker, and with 
 excellent skill, backed by practical knowledge 
 of many years' acquirement, he placed before 
 us, in terms not easily to be forgotten, the fact 
 that in London at that time twelve thousand 
 men were compelled to labour night and day, 
 apparently for no other reason than the 
 precedent of an unnatural and absurd custom. 
 He showed that with their families these 
 men formed a community in London of over 
 twenty-five thousand people, and he described 
 the work and the mode of work in a manner 
 which startled many of us by its revelations 
 of bad sanitation, bad alike for workers and 
 consumers.
 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 Later on, when I had examined for myself, 
 and had come to know a considerable num- 
 ber of facts relating to the condition of the 
 workers in the baking trade, I began to study 
 the processes of manufacture simply as such, 
 and so reverted to the system Dr. Dauglish 
 had explained to me, comparing and contrast- 
 ing it with the other methods in common use. 
 
 By degrees I was led to a still closer 
 connection with and study of the Dauglish 
 method, and since the lamented death of the 
 inventor I have for several years taken* a 
 special part in it as a director and scientific 
 adviser of the company which he founded. 
 
 If only out of respect to the memory of 
 Dr. Dauglish, and to place his, as yet, little 
 appreciated work again before the world, I 
 should be content to write this brief memoir. 
 But there are other reasons which add to the 
 desire. I am convinced, from careful and 
 prolonged observation, that the Dauglish 
 method of bread manufacture is on the whole 
 the best that has been discovered. Accord- 
 ing to my appreciation of it, it is the cleanliest 
 of all the processes known and followed ; it calls 
 for less drudgery, and, it is not unjust to say, 
 less objectionable labour, from the employed
 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 in bread manufacture ; it inflicts less arduous 
 toil, and so lessens the rapid wearing out of 
 the body, which is an unfortunate fate of 
 many of those who are engaged in the manu- 
 facture of the staff of life ; it supplies a purer 
 article to those who depend, largely, upon 
 the staff of life for their daily aliment. Lastly, 
 it supplies, I think, a better article, one which 
 gives to the public the fullest food value that 
 can be got out of the corn from which the 
 food is made, and which enables the manu- 
 facture of all kinds of flour or meal, white 
 meal, mixed meal, whole meal, to be most 
 completely and most easily produced. 
 
 For these reasons, apart from any in which 
 mere kindly sentiment for the inventor is 
 concerned, it occurs to me that the task of 
 writing the coming pages is well deserving 
 the labour that may be bestowed upon it. 
 
 The Dauglish system, as it stands at the 
 present moment, may be considered as prac- 
 tically perfected. The inventor left a few 
 details, which, though important, did not 
 affect the general principle he had in view, 
 and which he brought into practice. Those 
 details have been one by one introduced, and 
 the whole system has been brought to such
 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 excellent working that any demand for bread 
 made by it can be met. How far an 
 extremely large demand has been met, how 
 steadily, and how increasingly, is open now 
 to the public observation in London every 
 day. 
 
 The practical working and completion of 
 the Dauglish method is another and final 
 reason for the present exposition of it as a 
 part of the social history of this great city at 
 the present period of its development. 
 
 In carrying out the duty conveyed by the 
 nature of the task I shall, as far as possible, 
 in referring to the process which Dauglish 
 introduced, and to the difficulties in the 
 manufacture of bread which he endeavoured 
 to rectify, allow him, through what he has 
 left behind him, to speak for his invention in 
 his own words and mode of expression. These 
 were always clear, concise, and sufficient.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION OF THE RADICAL 
 CHANGE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BREAD 
 BY HIS METHOD. 
 
 JR. DAUGLISH, in one of his 
 earliest attempts to make his pro- 
 cess known, explained that a lecture 
 delivered by Professor Odling be- 
 fore the Society of Arts and Manufactures 
 conveyed to him unmistakably that nearly, if 
 not quite, all the evils complained of in the old 
 system of bread manufacture viz., the spoil- 
 ing of the flour, the necessity for using alum, 
 the long hours of labour, and the consequent 
 unhealthiness of the trade of the baker arise 
 out of the employment of fermentation for 
 the raising of bread. 
 
 He next, in explanation of his design,
 
 DAUGLISITS EXPOSITION. 
 
 described that bread-making essentially con- 
 sists in completely incorporating flour, water, 
 salt, and carbonic acid with each other in 
 such a manner as that they shall form a 
 tenacious, elastic, and bulky mass, in which 
 the aeriform constituent bears to the solid a 
 proportion of about three or four to one, and 
 which on being placed in the oven and 
 thoroughly baked shall swell to about double 
 this proportion. 
 
 After setting forth these simple proposi- 
 tions, Dauglish proceeded to show that while 
 the mechanical difficulties that lie in the way 
 of improvement in manufacture are overcome 
 with moderate facility, there was up to his 
 time another series of difficulties which were 
 not so easily managed. These he called the 
 chemical difficulties, and he explained them 
 briefly in such terms as follow : 
 
 " The mechanical part of bread-making is 
 very easy of accomplishment, and its results, 
 like all other mechanical processes, can always 
 be relied on with certainty. It is the chemi- 
 cal part out of which all the difficulties and 
 uncertainties arise, and which has presented 
 the only obstacle in the way of bread 
 manufacture participating in that marvellous
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 
 
 progress of the industrial arts which is the 
 most distinguishing feature of the present 
 age." 
 
 What the nature of the chemical difficulties 
 is he defines in a further exposition. 
 
 "The chemical changes within the sub- 
 stance of the dough, which it is the object 
 of the baker to effect, are those which shall 
 result in the alcoholic fermentation' of trans- 
 formed starch or glucose, whereby these 
 bodies are broken up into alcohol and car- 
 bonic acid, which latter the carbonic acid- 
 is the only product desired, but which cannot 
 be obtained without the previous transforma- 
 tion or degradation, more or less, of the 
 constituents of the flour. 
 
 In the first operation of bread making 
 the preparation of the sponge the baker 
 mixes up together into a soup-like paste 
 flour, warm water, and yeast or leaven ; this 
 he allows to stand for some hours, during 
 which active fermentation is set up, and 
 bubbles of carbonic acid are rapidly formed 
 and rise to the surface. The prolonged action, 
 of warmth and moisture, combined with that 
 of the yeast or leaven, change the whole 
 body of paste into a ferment sufficient to
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 
 
 affect a large quantity of flour when incorpo- 
 rated with it. In forming a sponge the 
 necessity of using a large quantity of yeast 
 is avoided on the one hand, while the length 
 of time that would otherwise be required for 
 putting the whole of the flour into a state of 
 active fermentation is considerably shortened, 
 and the deterioration of the flour, which is 
 caused by the prolonged action of warmth 
 and moisture, is proportionately lessened." 
 
 Dr. Dauglish observed, in relation to the 
 above account of the common process all but 
 exclusively in use in his day, that when sound 
 flour is employed the true alcoholic fermenta- 
 tion is only the later stage of what is termed 
 the panary fermentation. It is in that stage 
 that the yeast acts upon the glucose or grape 
 sugar so as to break it up into alcohol and 
 carbonic acid. But as in sound flour there is 
 very little, not more than a trace of, sugar, 
 and as in it the gluten is wholly or almost 
 wholly unaltered, certain portions of the 
 starch of the flour and of the gluten must 
 have passed through the necessary changes 
 for the alcoholic fermentation to act. This 
 is done in the sponge, when the gluten, by its 
 own spontaneous tendency to change under
 
 io DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 
 
 these conditions, assisted by the yeast, be- 
 comes metamorphic, and immediately acts 
 upon the starch, changing the starch into 
 dextrine and grape sugar, with propagation 
 of the yeast plant at .the expense of a small 
 portion of the gluten. The sponge, there- 
 fore, yields, when the flour is sound, all the 
 materials, the dextrine and glucose, the 
 diastase and the yeast, in a state ready to 
 pass into active alcoholic fermentation, and 
 to give up the necessary bubbles of carbonic 
 acid immediately their complete incorporation 
 with the flour is secured. 
 
 If all flour that is employed for the manu- 
 facture of bread were sound, the rule of 
 decomposition defined above would be very 
 definite. But when the flour is unsound a 
 very different state of things is presented. 
 Unsound flour, Dr. Dauglish pointed out, 
 is flour in which some of the changes on 
 which panary fermentation depends have 
 taken place to a greater or smaller extent, 
 and which are somewhat analogous to malt- 
 ing. " The gluten has already become 
 metamorphic, and the starch partly or wholly 
 changed into dextrine or glucose. The 
 gluten has lost more or less of its elasticity,
 
 DAUGLISITS EXPOSITION. 
 
 and is ready, immediately on the application 
 of warmth and moisture, not only to pass 
 rapidly into a state of solution, but to act 
 with the greatest energy on the partially 
 changed starch, completing its alteration into 
 glucose, so that a running sticky mass results 
 from the attempt at fermentation. 
 
 It is seen from these facts that when the 
 ordinary method of fermentation, by means 
 of yeast, is carried out with an inferior class 
 of flour, the results of the fermentation are 
 most uncertain, and may be most objection- 
 able in so far as the quality of the product, 
 the bread, is concerned. Nor does such a 
 statement of fact include all that has to be 
 told, for Dauglish detected that the same 
 state of things may be, and indeed often is, 
 brought about when even sound flour has 
 been used either by inexperienced persons, 
 who do not understand the management of 
 fermentation, and the' length of time or 
 temperature necessary, or by peculiar states 
 of and changes in the atmosphere, by which 
 the fermentative operations are so rapidly 
 hastened in the earlier stages as to become 
 almost or quite unmanageable. 
 
 Between perfectly sound flour and that
 
 12 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 
 
 which runs, in the manner described, on the 
 application of a ferment, Dauglish showed 
 that there are indefinite shades of varieties. 
 In these varieties of change he traced out 
 the derangements and irregularities which 
 are met with in establishments where attempts 
 are made to produce bread on a large scale 
 by division of labour, and to turn it out ready 
 for use at regular times; and when he had 
 fully exhibited all the drawbacks connected 
 with the then existing systems he proceeded 
 to explain the new system which he had 
 invented, and which was founded on the 
 radical improvement of doing away with the 
 process of fermentation altogether in the 
 manufacture of bread. 
 
 In introducing this radical modification he 
 did, in fact, more than he seems to have been 
 fully aware of at the time. It turned out 
 afterwards that in the manufacture of whole 
 meal bread, and of the'bread commonly known 
 as brown bread, the old or fermentation 
 method was not directly applicable ; that the 
 flour out of which such bread had to be made 
 must be added to other and finer flour in a 
 state of fermentation before a loaf could be 
 produced ; and that in consequence two
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 13 
 
 distinct processes had to be carried out in 
 order to produce one result. It turned out 
 also that, by the new process, one action 
 alone was called for, and that through every 
 step of manufacture of the whole meal, or 
 brown, or coarse bread, the result was as 
 successful as if fine or white flour had 
 been manipulated. Why this should be so 
 will be shown further on, but it deserves to 
 be mentioned thus early in order to indicate 
 how excellent the new process was, and how 
 good it was from the moment of its inception. 
 It has been brought forward as an advan- 
 tage of the Dauglish process that it would 
 enable' manufacturers, if it were generally 
 adopted, to bring into daily consumption 
 more nutritious kinds of flour in place of the 
 expensive fine wheaten flour which is still 
 in common use. It was the inventor's pure 
 and simple-minded pride that he had dis- 
 covered a means by which this desirable end, 
 tending towards national thrift and economy, 
 could be realized. For although, as he stated, 
 it is quite true that some of the coarser flours, 
 owing to the existence in them of unstable 
 albuminoid compounds, have often commenced 
 to undergo a process of panary fermentation
 
 i 4 DAUGLISITS EXPOSITION. 
 
 which renders the after or baker's process un- 
 certain, it is not to be understood that such 
 flours are therefore valueless, and to be cast 
 aside as food that cannot be applied for the 
 wants of the people. On the contrary, such 
 flours can be so utilized by the new process 
 as to be transformed into bread as light and 
 edible as any other, and to many persons 
 preferable to all other. I for one prefer a 
 bread which is not made of the whitest 
 wheaten flour, in which the starchy material 
 and the gluten form the only constituent 
 parts of much nutrient value, and I agree 
 in this particular with many more. 
 
 We have, indeed, in these last few years, 
 largely owing to the indefatigable exertions 
 of Miss Yates, become very familiar with 
 what is.now known as "whole meal bread." 
 The fact that such bread contains all the 
 essential food elements supplied by the grain 
 of wheat is now well recognized, and under 
 the improvements which have been intro- 
 duced for decortication of the grain, so as 
 to retain the useful and remove the hurtful 
 parts, we have obtained on a large scale a 
 whole-meal flour which is fast coming into 
 general use. The greatest obstacle to the
 
 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 15 
 
 general use of whole-meal flour has arisen 
 from the difficulty of converting it by the 
 fermentation process, and by one single and 
 continuous act, into bread. This difficulty 
 and the reason for it will be explained more 
 fully in a future page, as dependent on the 
 interference of a fermenting substance in the 
 outer coating of the wheat grain, called 
 cerealine. It is sufficient for me to say, in 
 this place, that when instead of the slow and 
 indirect process of fermentation for the pro- 
 duction of whole-meal bread, the aerated 
 method is adopted, all the difficulties dis- 
 appear, and the loaf from whole-meal is 
 as easily and quickly manufactured as that 
 from any other flour, including the so-called 
 finest kind of wheaten flour. Hence, for the 
 manufacture of whole-meal bread for public 
 institutions the system has been employed 
 on the largest scale and with the most 
 complete success, while since the whole- 
 meal has become popular in the community 
 generally the same plan has been continued 
 with an equal advantage and readiness, no 
 modification of machinery or procedure being 
 demanded or introduced. 
 
 In summary, the Dauglish process answers
 
 1 6 DAUGLISH'S EXPOSITION. 
 
 as well for the finest wheat flour as for the 
 coarser kinds, while it gives to the coarser 
 kinds advantages of manufacture which no 
 other process does. It enables whole-meal 
 to be made into good bread by one step, an 
 advantage exclusively its own ; and should 
 the day ever unfortunately come when, in 
 this country, the finer kinds of flour were 
 not generally obtainable, that is to say, if 
 the people had ever to depend for the staff 
 of life on coarser flours than the white flours 
 now usually sold, the Dauglish system 
 would be soon recognized as the only one 
 fitted to meet the emergency with effective- 
 ness and economy.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MANUFACTURE OF BREAD BY FERMENTATION. 
 
 fOR the sake of making the reader 
 fully acquainted with the distinc- 
 tive character of the Dauglish 
 process for the manufacture of 
 bread, it will be well to give, in a short 
 chapter, the method by fermentation which 
 it is intended to supersede. 
 
 One of the tersest and best descriptions 
 of the fermentation process with which I am 
 acquainted, is that supplied by Mr. John 
 Bennett, who was for many years the secre- 
 tary of the London Co-operative Bakers' 
 Association, in the Report to the Secretary 
 of State relative to the grievances complained . 
 of by journeymen bakers, published in 1862. 
 Bennett worked as an operative baker for 
 
 2
 
 i8 
 
 upwards of thirty years, and I prefer to 
 follow his description, with the exception of 
 a few details, to any that I could furnish 
 from my own observation, although I have 
 been a witness to the procedure many times, 
 and have before me many notes upon it, 
 taken at the time of observation. 
 
 STEP THE FIRST. 
 
 The first process, Bennett tells us, for 
 making bread on the large scale, as for con- 
 sumption in London, consists in producing the 
 "ferment," which is usually done from eleven 
 to twelve o'clock in the day. It takes about 
 ten minutes to do it. 
 
 The mixture, or ferment, is made as 
 follows : 
 
 Potatoes in the proportion of one pound 
 and a half to the bushel of flour, or nine 
 pounds to a sack of flour, the sack holding 
 six bushels, weighing altogether two hundred 
 and eighty pounds are first boiled and then 
 mashed in a tub. Two quarts of hot water 
 are added, and the mash is well stirred. 
 When the mixture of water and of potatoes 
 is complete, cold water is added, until the 
 whole is cooled down to 80 Fahr. After
 
 BREAD BY FERMENTATION. 19 
 
 this, yeast one quart of brewer's yeast is the 
 usual quantity is mixed up with the mash 
 in the tub, and about two pounds of flour are 
 added (that is to feed the yeast), and the 
 whole covered over and allowed to stand 
 from six to seven hours. If what jis called 
 " patent yeast " is used, the water that is 
 added to the mash is left at from 90 to 100 
 Fr., instead of 80. The mixture is called 
 the ferment. It ferments to a "head," and 
 then falls once, and sometimes twice. It is 
 ready for use when the fermentation has 
 ceased. 
 
 STEP THE SECOND. 
 
 At about five or six in the evening the 
 "' ferment" is ready to be mixed with one- 
 fourth part of the flour which is to be made 
 into the bread. This is commonly called 
 " setting the sponge." The admixture is 
 usually made with the arms of the workman, 
 water being added in sufficient quantity, from 
 seven to eight gallons to make " the sponge." 
 If one sack of flour (200 Ibs.) is used, it will 
 take one man from a quarter of an hour to 
 twenty minutes to complete the admixture. 
 Two men would do two sacks in about half
 
 20 MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 an hour, or three sacks in about three- 
 quarters of an hour. " It is very hard work." 
 The " sponge " remains from five or six in 
 the evening until about midnight, in order 
 to undergo the process of fermentation. It 
 rises the first time in about four hours, then 
 it falls. It rises a second time in about three- 
 quarters of an hour to an hour afterwards. 
 Between these hours of setting the sponge 
 and completing the fermentation the working 
 baker gets most 'of his night's sleep. 
 
 STEP THE THIRD. 
 
 So soon as the sponge is ready the remain- 
 ing three-fourths of the flour which is to be 
 made into bread is added, and the w T orkman 
 proceeds to mix the added flour with the 
 sponge, with more water, and with about 
 three pounds of common salt. The water 
 now added is about eight gallons, the whole 
 quantity of water required for every stage of 
 the process of making bread from the finest 
 flour being sixteen gallons to the sack of 
 two hundred and eighty pounds' weight. 
 
 The term used in the trade, according to 
 Bennett, is not " kneading," as is commonly
 
 BREAD BY FERMENTATION. 21 
 
 supposed, but " making the dough," although 
 it is really a kneading process. It takes one 
 man about three-quarters of an hour to make 
 a sack of five bushels into dough. This is 
 the hardest work which the journeyman has 
 to do. The sack of flour weighing two 
 hundred and eighty pounds turns out a yield 
 of ninety-one loaves, of four pounds each, 
 after standing twenty-four hours. 
 
 " After the dough is made it stands, 
 according to the kind of yeast used, or 
 whether the weather be hot or cold, from 
 half an hour to two hours ; " shorter if the 
 yeast used be of best quality and the weather 
 be warm, and viee versa. 
 
 During this interval, Mr. Bennett states, 
 the journeymen first take some refreshment, 
 which they call their breakfast, and then lie 
 down in their clothes upon the boards. They 
 spread a sack or two upon the boards, and 
 put a tin under their heads for a pillow, some- 
 times with a sack folded upon it, sometimes 
 without. These " boards " are the boards 
 on which the dough is weighed out, and then 
 moulded into the form of the loaf before it is 
 placed in the oven. The tin is the baking 
 tin for the " tinned bread."
 
 22 MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 STEP THE FOURTH. 
 
 The journeymen, when they get up from 
 the boards, about two in the morning, proceed 
 to weigh off the pieces of dough, which are 
 put aside as they are weighed. When all 
 the dough is weighed off, the process of 
 moulding the loaves commences, and the loaves 
 are put into the oven as fast as they are 
 moulded. The boards on which the bread is 
 weighed and moulded are scraped and brushed 
 every time they are used, and many masters 
 have them washed once a week ; but the 
 moisture left from washing has a tendency, 
 in the opinion of some masters, to make the 
 bread sour. 
 
 STEP THE FIFTH. 
 
 From two to three in the morning until 
 five the bread remains in the oven, where it 
 is exposed to a temperature of 400. There 
 it passes through the process of complete 
 cooking, with the formation of crust. The 
 bread is withdrawn, and the process of its 
 manufacture is completed. It is set aside to 
 cool, and after a short time it is ready for 
 delivery.
 
 BREAD BY FERMENTATION. 23 
 
 COMMENT ON THE FERMENTATION PROCESS. 
 
 The fermentation process of bread manu- 
 facture is, as will be seen from the above, 
 a slow and elaborate chemical procedure, 
 requiring much manual labour, care, and en- 
 durance. It can scarcely be called a cleanly 
 process, because by necessity it brings the 
 workmen more closely than is pleasant into 
 personal contact with the materials which they 
 are transforming into food. Be the workmen 
 ever so cleanly, they are still performing a 
 part which it would be well to relieve them 
 from if the relief were possible, an idea which 
 the least fastidious persons would speedily 
 realize if they could only see how, in the 
 various steps of its manufacture, the bread 
 .which comes to their tables, after the fer- 
 mented process, is turned out from stage to 
 stage. 
 
 It might be expected that Mr. Bennett's 
 description, good as a history of what was 
 going on in the baking trade twenty-two 
 years ago, was altogether out of date in these 
 days, when sanitation has made such striking 
 headway, and when the word health is as 
 common in every one's mouth as I myself or
 
 24 MANUFACTURE OF BREAD. 
 
 any other health reformer could wish it to 
 be. I regret, however, to be obliged to state 
 that this expectation is not realized. There 
 is, I believe, no occupation in which so few 
 improvements of a sanitary kind have been 
 generally introduced. In the large majority 
 of bakeries the ancient errors still prevail, as 
 a quite recent investigation has most clearly 
 shown, nor is it likely that many of the more 
 serious errors can be reformed while yeast is 
 employed as the generator of the carbonic 
 acid by fermentation, and while a sponge 
 must be set for every batch of bread that 
 has to be produced. 
 
 Beyond these faults, there are others which 
 can scarcely be avoided. In order to meet 
 the irregularities of fermentation, which are 
 incident to varying qualities of flours, alum 
 or other substances have to be employed to 
 regulate the fermenting process. This will 
 be more fully indicated in a future chapter.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY TOWARDS THE 
 MANUFACTURE OF AERATED BREAD. 
 
 E are led now to the modification in 
 the method of making bread which 
 was introduced in a practical form 
 by Dr. Dauglish, and to which the 
 name of the aerated process has been given, 
 and to the product of which the term " aerated 
 bread " has been applied. 
 
 The distinguishing term very aptly defines 
 what is meant. The bread turned out by 
 the aerated process is not subjected to any 
 method by which carbonic acid gas is pro- 
 duced from the action of a ferment. The 
 , necessary impregnation with gas is effected 
 by forcing carbonic acid, made by a pure 
 chemical procedure, into the mixture of flour
 
 26 THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY 
 
 and water without any intermediate ferment- 
 ing stage. 
 
 It is not claimed for Dauglish that he 
 conceived originally the idea of making' 
 bread by this direct method. 
 
 In order to get at the root of the process 
 we must go back to the labours of the illus- 
 trious Joseph Priestley, who in the last century, 
 in his famous researches with fixed air, since 
 called carbonic acid gas, found that this gas 
 could be held by water, and from that circum- 
 stance invented the plan of impregnating 
 water with the gas and producing aerated 
 waters. 
 
 This curious and valuable discovery had 
 the most important influences in various 
 ways. Indirectly it led to the compression 
 of gases. Directly it led to the commercial 
 introduction of aerated drinks and of aerated 
 bread. It has yet to lead to other discoveries, 
 perhaps still more remarkable. 
 
 Dauglish himself, in his valuable evidence 
 before Mr. Tremenhere, refers to those au- 
 thorities who, previously to him, had thought 
 of the same subject, namely, to Professor John- . 
 ston, Professor of Chemistry in the University 
 of Durham, who published a paper on the sub-
 
 TOWARDS AERATED BREAD. 27 
 
 ject in 1847 5 to an anonymous physician, who 
 wrote a pamphlet in the year 1846, entitled 
 " Instructions for Making Unfermented 
 Bread"; and tc the great chemist, Professor 
 Thomas Thomson, formerly Professor of 
 Chemistry in the University of Glasgow, who 
 in 1 8 1 6 showed that the only purpose secured 
 by fermentation in bread-making is the gene- 
 ration of the carbonic acid required to raise 
 the dough, an end that could be attained 
 by the use of carbonate of soda and muriatic 
 acid, by which the waste consequent on 
 fermentation would be largely saved. 
 
 The claim that has to be made for Daug- 
 lish is that he practically discovered the mode 
 by which carbonic acid could, under pressure, 
 be introduced in water to the flour, and so act 
 on the flour as to make it become a light 
 dough, as if it had been leavened. Even 
 here we cannot say that he had not been to 
 some extent anticipated in conception, al- 
 though he did not know the fact at the time 
 of his invention. 
 
 There was an inventor by the name of 
 Luke Hebert, who in 1836 brought out a 
 patent for manufacturing bread by machinery, 
 in which aerated water, charged with car-
 
 28 THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY 
 
 bonic acid, was the agent used for raising the 
 dough. Hebert, like Dr. Dauglish, was an 
 enthusiast on the subject of aerated bread ; 
 and he set forth the value of his invention 
 in language rarely met with in the terms 
 and specifications of a patent. The manu- 
 facture of bread, he says, surpasses all others 
 in extent, but hitherto it has not been treated 
 as a manufacture ; the homely and unscien- 
 tific practices of past ages remain in all their 
 pristine impurity and wastefulness. To please 
 the eye, the most nutritive and agreeable 
 properties of the wheat are partially destroyed 
 or deteriorated. To economize and purify 
 the "staff of life" appears to have been an 
 object either unworthy of the attention or 
 degrading to the study of philosophers or 
 mechanics, while that of a candlewick and 
 numerous other " trifles light as air " have 
 been the objects of much elaborate investi- 
 gation and of public patronage. He then 
 declares, as a fact capable of demonstration, 
 that the present system of supplying the 
 public with bread is equivalent to an un- 
 necessary tax upon the people of these 
 kingdoms of fifteen millions annually, the 
 whole of that enormous sum being swallowed
 
 TO WA RDS A ERA TED BREA D. 29 
 
 up in wasteful processes and needless com- 
 mercial operations. 
 
 In Hebert's process the whole of the 
 rendering of corn into bread was performed 
 in one place, and at one time. He essayed 
 to be miller and baker in combination in one 
 manufactory. The grain was delivered into 
 the receiving room of the manufactory, where 
 it was examined and weighed. This done, 
 it was hoisted through a shaft, charged with 
 warm air, into a room at the top of the build- 
 ing, and delivered on a creeper to any part 
 of the several garners. When the wheat was 
 required it was allowed to run down into the 
 clearing and drying room for the purpose of 
 being sifted, screened, and prepared. Then 
 it was made to descend into the cooling and 
 grinding garners. After the grain was 
 ground and dressed, the flour it had yielded 
 was raised into the flour garners, the offal 
 being distributed into sacks to be carried 
 away. 
 
 For converting the flour into bread, it 
 was first mixed with the requisite quantity of 
 finely-ground salt, and then put into hoppers 
 which served the twofold purpose of measur- 
 ing the quantity and of conducting the flour
 
 3 o THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY 
 
 into the mixing and kneading apparatus. 
 This department of mixing and kneading 
 was not conducted in the ordinary wasteful 
 manner, by fermentation, but was entirely 
 superseded by the immediate and direct 
 application to the flour of water highly 
 impregnated with carbonic acid gas and 
 atmospheric air. The impregnation and 
 kneading being quickly completed, the dough 
 was made to descend an inclined plane on to 
 a " making up table " situated on the charging 
 and discharging apparatus of the ovens. As 
 fast as the loaves were made up they were 
 placed upon a heated cast-iron pan, which 
 gradually advanced into the oven until the 
 pan became filled and the oven completely 
 charged. 
 
 It may be stated, in general terms, that in 
 the above description, from Hebert's patent 
 the leading principle in the manufacture of 
 aerated bread is supplied. It does not seem 
 that the plan was a successful one in Hebert's 
 hands, and it very soon died out. In fact 
 while the principle was, in the main, correct, 
 the mode of operation was so deficient in 
 detail it could never have been made a success 
 as it originally stood. The one suggestion of
 
 TOWARDS AERATED BREAD. 31 
 
 casting the dough, after it had been made, 
 down a shaft to a " making up table" was 
 alone sufficient to ruin it as a working scheme. 
 In that act the whole of the preliminary work 
 of making a good loaf was missed. So soon 
 as the dough was liberated from the mixing 
 and kneading reservoir, and splashed down 
 upon the mixing table, the gas with which 
 the dough had been impregnated would be 
 set at liberty, and the mass left become a 
 heavy paste which, in the oven, could not rise 
 to make a bread that was likely to be 
 popular. 
 
 Perhaps if Hebert's invention, in which 
 he tells us he had the assistance of some 
 foreigner living abroad, had been brought 
 into practice on a large scale, the faults in it 
 would have been detected and amended. As 
 it was, the system remained to be accom- 
 plished by the inventive skill of Dauglish.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ORIGINAL DAUGLISH PROCESS. 
 
 |R. DAUGLISH, in an original paper 
 read before the Society of Arts in 
 1860, described with great perspi- 
 cuity the principles carried out in his 
 process. It had long been known to chemists, 
 he observed, that water will absorb its own 
 bulk of carbonic acid, whatever the density, 
 with great readiness, when agitated with it. 
 Thus, if a bottle be half filled with pure water 
 and half with pure gas, and if at a tempera- 
 ture of 62 Fahr. the bottle be closed and the 
 water and gas be freely agitated together, 
 so much absorption of gas will take place 
 that the barometric pressure within the bottle 
 will have fallen from the natural atmospheric 
 pressure of thirty inches of mercury to fifteen
 
 THE ORIGINAL DA UGLISH PROCESS. 33 
 
 inches. The gas will be immediately diffused 
 through or absorbed by the water, until there 
 is an exact balance between the quantity of 
 gas held in solution by one cubic foot of 
 water and that contained in each cubic foot 
 of space within the bottle not occupied by the 
 water ; and as this law of absorption is per- 
 sistent at all pressures, by increasing the 
 density of the gas the quantity absorbed by 
 the water will be increased in an equal ratio ; 
 and so long as the water is retained under 
 the pressure due to the density, so long will 
 it hold the gas in solution, but whenever it is 
 released from the pressure the gas will escape 
 from it with effervescence. 
 
 This simple rule explained, Dauglish 
 proceeds to illustrate that if water, holding in 
 solution the necessary quantity of carbonic 
 acid gas, could be used to incorporate with 
 flour in the preparation of dough, without 
 any of the gas being allowed to escape from 
 it until the dough is fully formed, but then 
 be allowed to escape, it would cause the 
 formation of the necessary minute bubbles 
 of gas, which would distend the dough into a 
 perfect sponge, even more perfect than that 
 which is obtained by fermentation, since 
 
 3
 
 34 THE ORIGINAL DA UGLISH PROCESS. 
 
 every atom of water would yield its atom of 
 gas, not only between the particles of starch 
 and their gluten coat, but also within the 
 substance of the coat itself, rendering that 
 porous. 
 
 By taking advantage of these facts, Daug- 
 lish proceeded successfully. He made an 
 arrangement by which he brought together, 
 in a closed apparatus, the flour, out of which 
 the dough was to be made, and water super- 
 saturated with the carbonic acid gas. He 
 incorporated the flour with the water and gas 
 under pressure, and when the incorporation 
 was complete, the mixture was drawn off, 
 when it expanded into a spongy mass, and 
 produced a dough perfect in character, and 
 ready for the oven. 
 
 By this simple method, he, so to speak, 
 "set the sponge" without any of the cumbrous 
 processes connected with fermentation to 
 which reference has been made in a former 
 chapter. 
 
 This, he adds, is the new process of bread- 
 making. 
 
 It will be felt, as the above description is 
 read, that there is no material difference 
 between this mode of manufacture and that
 
 THE ORIGINAL DA UGLISH PROCESS. 35 
 
 proposed by Mr. Luke Hebert. Without 
 doubt, the general principle was the same, 
 but the details were so different that Daug- 
 lish's plan was as successful as Hebert' s was 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 In the first place, Dauglish's method of 
 mixing was much superior ; but the greatest 
 improvement consisted in the mode in which 
 the dough was made into loaves ready for 
 the oven. 
 
 It will be remembered that Hebert, by 
 his method, let the dough pass direct from 
 the mixer on to a slab or table where it was 
 made by hand into a loaf, or transferred into 
 a tin, much to the loss of the carbonic acid 
 and to the spoiling of the dough. 
 
 Dauglish by his plan caught the dough as 
 it was leaving the mixer ready for the oven. 
 By the pressure in the mixer the dough was 
 forced through a nozzle or mouth, and as it 
 expanded or rose in^the act of leaving the 
 nozzle it was ready to be baked. The grand 
 secret of success was included in this simple 
 and practical contrivance. 
 
 The brief description of the apparatus, as 
 it left his hands, is given by its inventor in 
 his own words, in the orginal paper read-
 
 36 THE ORIGINAL DAUGLISH PROCESS. 
 
 before the Society of Arts. It runs as 
 follows : 
 
 The apparatus essentially consists of a 
 gasholder, and a generator, similar in con- 
 struction and principle to, but larger in size 
 than, what are used by the makers of aerated 
 waters ; of pumps suitable for pumping elastic 
 fluids ; and of a mixing vessel, and a water 
 vessel in connection, both made so that they 
 can be tightly closed to sustain an internal 
 pressure of from one hundred to two hundred 
 pounds on the square inch. The mixing 
 vessel is supplied with flour through a shoot 
 which passes from the floor above. The 
 water-vessel is supplied with water through 
 a pipe which comes from a large cistern at 
 the top of the building. 
 
 The mixer is capable of being closed per- 
 fectly tight, and is opened by means of a 
 proper mechanical contrivance, with the 
 greatest facility. One,, man in a few seconds 
 can both close and open. 
 
 The order of working, and the time re- 
 quired for making a sack of flour of two 
 hundred and eighty pounds into dough, are 
 as follows. The time is rather over than 
 under stated.
 
 THE ORIGINAL DAUGLISH PROCESS. 37 
 
 Opening lid of mixer and fitting within the 
 neck the end of flour-shoot and turning 
 water-cock to fill water-vessel . . i minute. 
 
 Passing from top of machine to floor above 
 
 and shooting down a sack of flour . . 3 minutes. 
 
 Returning, closing water-cock, removing 
 
 end of shoot, and closing mixer . . 2 
 
 Withdrawing atmospheric air from mixer 
 
 Pumping gas through water into mixers 
 
 Mixing ...... 
 
 Total . 
 
 3 
 10 
 
 7 
 26 
 
 At the end of this time the dough is 
 ready to be drawn into loaves from a nozzle 
 or mouth, through which it is forced by the 
 pressure within the mixer ; and as it expands 
 or rises in the act of leaving the mouth it is 
 ready to be baked immediately. One boy is 
 capable of drawing the dough from one sack 
 of flour into loaves in fifteen minutes, as fast 
 as they can be weighed and placed in the 
 oven. 
 
 Thus, in the short space of twenty-six 
 minutes, which is subject to no variation, the 
 baker can always rely upon having his dough 
 ready for the oven, and this with a certainty, 
 when the labour is well organised, which is
 
 38 THE ORIGINAL DA UGLISH PROCESS. 
 
 nearly mathematical. To these facts he 
 added in a subsequent essay the following : 
 
 A bakery capable of converting two sacks 
 of flour per hour into bread, would, by work- 
 ing ten hours continuously out of twenty- 
 four, convert twenty sacks per day, or one 
 hundred and twenty sacks per week, or 
 allowing for contingencies say one hundred 
 sacks per week, or working with two sets 
 of workmen for twenty hours out of twenty- 
 four, double that quantity, say two hun- 
 dred sacks per week. Such a bakery could 
 be built and fitted with plant and machinery 
 ready for work for from ,1,500 to ; 1,700. 
 Land and patent licence would be extra. 
 
 A bakery with half the manufacturing 
 capacity of the above would cost between 
 ^"800 and ^900. 
 
 A small bakery, fitted with machinery and 
 plant for converting half a sack of flour at a 
 time, and suitable for a baker doing about 
 twenty sacks per week, could be fitted, 
 exclusive of building and ovens, for about 
 ,250. 
 
 The process was originally described by 
 another and independent observer in the 
 subsequent account.
 
 THE ORIGINAL DA UGL1SH PROCESS. 39 
 
 The principle involved, like that in most 
 good mechanical contrivances, is extremely 
 simple. Taking advantage of the well-known 
 capacity of water for absorbing carbonic acid, 
 whatever its destiny, in quantities equal to its 
 own bulk, Dr. Dauglish first prepares the 
 water which is to be used in forming the 
 dough, by placing it within a strong vessel, 
 and forcing carbonic acid gas into it by the 
 aid of a pump put in motion by a small steam- 
 engine. 
 
 The gas is formed by the action of pure 
 sulphuric acid upon chalk, placed within the 
 vessel. The gas is subsequently washed by 
 passing it through water, and ascends into 
 a gasometer, from which it is pumped, as 
 occasion requires, into vessels, within which 
 it is combined, under a pressure of about 
 100 Ibs. on the square inch, with the water, 
 which absorbs it without any appreciable in- 
 crease in bulk, and, of course, retains the gas 
 so long as it is kept under pressure, and not 
 one moment longer. The flour, and salt in 
 the form of brine, are conveyed by a shoot 
 and a tube into a hemispherical vessel. As 
 soon as the necessary quantity has been 
 introduced, the valve is closed through which
 
 40 THE ORIGINAL DA UGLISH PROCESS. 
 
 the flour entered. A cock is turned, and a 
 measured quantity of aerated water admitted, 
 or rather forced, by high pressure, into the 
 hemispherical vessel. A system of knives 
 rotating within, effectually kneads the mass. 
 After a little time, a dough-tap, as it is called, 
 is opened, and the contents of the vessel 
 expelled in a continuous stream by the pres- 
 sure within. Here it is that the remarkable 
 part of the process occurs. 
 
 The closed vessels, the gasometers, and 
 the pump, have only been means to one end. 
 As the mass leaves the tap it expands, by 
 virtue of the escape of the gas imprisoned in 
 the water the instant before, into dough, 
 which is cut off by an attendant, weighed, 
 and transmitted to the oven without coming 
 in contact with the human hand for even a 
 second.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 
 
 |N the quarter of a century during 
 which the Dauglish process of bread 
 manufacture has now been in practi- 
 cal operation, many improvements 
 in details have been introduced. The present 
 chairman of the Aerated Bread Company 
 has paid much attention to improvements in 
 details, both before and since Dr. Dauglish's 
 death, and to his scientific skill and perse- 
 verance we are indebted for several practical 
 advancements. 
 
 I propose in the present chapter to explain 
 the latest developments of the Dauglish 
 design. For this purpose I shall proceed in 
 the most elementary manner, step by step, 
 so that every reader may follow me.
 
 42 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 
 
 STEP I. 
 
 In the factory they begin, practically, with 
 the manufacture of the carbonic dioxide, com- 
 monly known as carbonic acid gas. As this 
 last name, carbonic acid, is that with which 
 the public is most familiar, I shall, in spite of 
 its being rather antiquated, keep to it. 
 
 Five cubic feet of carbonic acid are required 
 to charge thirty-five gallons of water, for 
 every two sacks, or five hundred and sixty 
 poundSj of flour. This is sufficient for four 
 hundred portions of two pounds and a quarter 
 each of dough, and for four hundred two- 
 pound loaves of aerated bread. 
 
 There is nothing that calls for special 
 notice in regard to the production of the 
 carbonic acid gas. The gas is made in the 
 usual way, as it is made for the manufacture 
 of the artificial aerated waters, is collected, 
 thoroughly well washed, and stored for use. 
 The utmost care is bestowed in washing the 
 gas, so that it may be freed from every source 
 of impurity ; and a special apparatus has been 
 constructed for this purpose. The receiver 
 in which the gas is evolved is called the 
 generator ; the apparatus in which it is
 
 THE MODERN AERA TED PROCESS. 43 
 
 washed is called the washer, and the re- 
 ceptacle in which it is stored is called the 
 reservoir. 
 
 The gas passes from the generator into 
 the washer, a series of vessels in which it is 
 thoroughly cleansed by water purification. 
 From the washer it passes into the reservoir, 
 or reservoirs, which hold it ready for use. 
 
 Originally the reservoirs were constructed 
 after the old fashion of a series of large gas- 
 holders. These having been found incon- 
 venient, and expensive to keep in order, have 
 been superseded by a set of large strong 
 impermeable bags, as reservoirs, which are 
 suspended from the ceiling, and which, as the 
 gas is drawn from them, collapse. In these 
 convenient reservoirs a plentiful supply of 
 gas is always kept on hand. 
 
 The gas drawn from the reservoirs is 
 pumped by a steam pump into the water 
 column or cylinder, in which it is condensed. 
 Each water column, or cylinder, is filled with 
 forty-one gallons of water at ordinary temper- 
 ature, and the gas is condensed in it under a 
 pressure of twenty-six pounds to the square 
 inch. The water so charged is now ready 
 to be applied for raising the dough.
 
 44 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 
 
 STEP II. 
 
 In the original process the flour that had 
 to be made into bread was submitted to the 
 action of the super-aerated water by direct 
 transference into what will by-and-bye be 
 described as the "mixer." It was found > 
 however, in practice, that much difficulty 
 occurred in making the gas admix readily 
 with the flour and water. Great pressure 
 was required, and the mixer, with all the 
 tubes and taps connected with it, was ex- 
 posed each time to considerable strain. To 
 lessen these difficulties a plan has been in- 
 troduced, called the wine-whey modification. 
 
 In observing the behaviour of water and 
 carbonic acid on flour, it was observed that if 
 a weak wine-whey were added to the flour 
 with the aerated water, the paste, or dough, 
 which resulted was more easily aerated than 
 if water alone were used. The water diluted 
 with the wine-whey held more carbonic acid 
 in solution, and the gluten of the flour, 
 softened by the mixture, allowed a more 
 equable and effective distention of the dough 
 by the gas. Thus much pressure was saved 
 in the process of aeration.
 
 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 45 
 
 One hundred pounds pressure on the square 
 inch was reduced to twenty-six pounds. 
 
 In order to carry out the wine-whey 
 diluting process, a vat placed in the upper 
 story of the factory is charged with a portion 
 of malt and flour, and these are mashed and 
 allowed to ferment until a weak and very 
 slightly acid thin wine is produced. This 
 fluid is cooled by passing over a series of 
 cooling surfaces, and then is stored for use 
 until it becomes transformed into a vinous- 
 whey. From the store holding the whey a 
 tube descends, which can be made to com- 
 municate with the water cylinder in which the 
 process of "aeration is carried out. 
 
 Each cylinder holds, as we have seen, forty- 
 one gallons of fluid, and into it, when it is 
 about to be charged, eight gallons of the whey 
 are introduced to twenty-nine of water. When 
 the admixture is complete the gas is let in, 
 and the mixture is ready for aeration. 
 
 To aerate the mixture of wine-whey and 
 water, the gas from the reservoirs is pumped 
 by the steam pump from the elastic reser- 
 voirs into the cylinder, at a pressure of 
 twenty-six pounds to the square inch, as 
 indicated by the pressure-gauge. Charged
 
 46 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 
 
 completely at the pressure named, the fluid is 
 ready for use, and the second step is completed. 
 
 STEP III. 
 
 We come now to the process to which the 
 two steps immediately preceding are pre- 
 liminary. We have to understand how the 
 flour is converted into dough by aeration. 
 
 Let us suppose that two sacks, or five 
 hundred and sixty pounds, of flour, sufficient 
 to make four hundred loaves of bread of two 
 pounds weight each, have to be produced. 
 
 In the factory there are, projecting from 
 the first floor, a series of pear-shaped iron 
 chambers, called mixers. The mixers are 
 strongly girded so as to be able to bear the 
 pressure from within. They are formed in 
 three pieces, and they are lined over their 
 interior surface with a very pure white hard 
 enamel, which can be cleansed like porcelain. 
 
 The upper portion of the mixer, or upper 
 neck, projects a little through the floor to 
 which it is suspended, into the story above. 
 Here it is armed with a cover, which can be 
 removed, replaced, and screwed down. 
 
 The lower and narrower portion of the 
 mixer, the part which corresponds to the
 
 THE MODERN AERATED PROCESS. 47 
 
 stem part of the pear, to which the mixer has 
 been likened in respect to shape, ends in a 
 neck, to which is connected a valve opening, 
 which is capable of being closed and opened 
 by a long lever, the arms of which extend on 
 each side the neck of the mixer. Within the 
 mixer are arms which rotate on an axis passing 
 through the upper part, and are worked by an 
 engine after the neck of the mixer has been 
 hermetically closed. The arms by their 
 motion cause admixture within the mixer. 
 
 By a small tube the mixer is connected 
 with the cylinder of aerated fluid. 
 
 All being ready for work, the two sacks 
 of flour are brought along the floor of the 
 chamber in which the upper mouth of the 
 mixer is situated, the mixer is opened there, 
 the flour is poured in, the opening is closed, 
 the tap leading from the cylinder of aerated 
 fluid is turned on so as to allow the aerated 
 fluid to enter, and by the action of the arms 
 v/ithin the mixer the flour and the fluid are 
 completely incorporated. 
 
 When the incorporation is complete the 
 valve in the lower or pear-shaped neck of 
 the mixer is opened by a sharp movement of 
 the lever, and the precise quantity of dough
 
 48 THE MODERN AERA TED PROCESS. 
 
 for a single loaf of bread is forced out under 
 the pressure of the gas. By a reverse move- 
 ment of the lever the dough is cut off, and 
 falls into a baking tin which passes under- 
 neath on a sliding platform. The dough is 
 then conveyed to the oven, where it is 
 converted into bread. 
 
 The rapidity with which this process is 
 carried out is one of the most striking of its 
 many advantages. A few weeks since, I 
 minuted the time that was, leisurely, taken 
 for converting two sacks of flour into portions 
 of dough for four hundred two-pound loaves. 
 From the time when the aeration of the 
 water was commenced to the time that all the 
 dough was tinned and in the oven, a period of 
 forty minutes, only, was required. 
 
 In the preparation of the dough by the 
 fermentation method, a period of about ten 
 hours would have been required. 
 
 And, throughout, everything was effected 
 by perfectly pure machinery, and with the 
 precision of the most perfectly-acting machine.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHEAT BREAD AND FLOURS. 
 
 E are brought to a point where we 
 may study the changes which take 
 place in the various steps of the 
 processes described in the two 
 last chapters. 
 
 If we take a grain of wheat and divide it 
 into two halves from top to bottom, and look 
 at the section with a magnifying glass, we see 
 three distinct forms of structure. 
 
 All round the outside we see five layers of 
 
 flat cells, which look like coverings or skins. 
 
 Within them there is a layer of square cells 
 
 which, when the grain is moist, are filled with 
 
 a glutinous fluid. 
 
 Within these again, and filling up the body 
 of the grain, are large numbers of many-sided 
 cells containing starchy material. 
 
 4
 
 50 WHEAT BREAD AND FLOURS. 
 
 In this section of a wheat grain, we see 
 all that is necessary for the support of animal 
 life, except the proper quantity of water. 
 
 In the dried wheat there is per cent. 
 
 Of food for building up the) Flesh-forming 13-6 
 tissues of the body . . /Mineral . 17 
 
 I5-3 
 
 Of heat-producing, for ani-] Starch . . . 69*0 
 
 mating, life-giving force jFat ... 1-2 
 
 70*2 
 
 Of water 14*5 
 
 lOO'O 
 
 The various kinds of food here named are 
 laid up in the grain of wheat in the following 
 manner. 
 
 The mineral food combined with the dry 
 part or husk, and with a little albuminous or 
 tissue-forming food, cerealine, lies in the outer 
 layers of the grain. 
 
 The chief part of the tissue-forming food, 
 in the form of gluten, sometimes called 
 " crude " gluten, is laid up in the square cells 
 of the grain. The heat-producing food is 
 laid up in the many-sided cells in the body of 
 the grain, and consists of the basis of all the 
 heat-giving foods, starch with a small quan- 
 tity of fat.
 
 WHEA T BREA D A ND FLOURS. 51 
 
 The water is enclosed or rather diffused in 
 the grain, chiefly in combination with the 
 flesh or tissue-forming substance. 
 
 The whole of the requirements of food are 
 here presented in wheat grain, in so far as 
 quality is concerned, but not in correct relation 
 to quantity. The proportions are not such 
 as would enable life to be healthily supported 
 as it would be on milk. In milk the propor- 
 tions per cent, are : 
 
 Food for building up the ] ; Flesh-forming 4-92 
 tissues of the body . . j Mineral . 070 
 
 - 5-62 
 Heat-producing food, for] 
 
 animating, life-giving force} ^'5 
 
 Water ............ 86-88 
 
 - 86-88 
 
 lOO'OO 
 
 If then we strike a comparison between the 
 two foods we shall find that in comparison 
 with milk as a standard food, wheat is at fault 
 in the following proportions. 
 
 Wheat. Milk. 
 
 Flesh foods .... 13-6 4-92 
 
 Mineral foods ... 17 0-70 
 
 Heat foods .... 69-0 7-50 
 
 Water 14-5 86 -88
 
 52 WHEA T BREAD AND FL O URS. 
 
 Wheat therefore is a standard food as re- 
 gards qualities, but not as regards quantities. 
 When, however, wheat has been ground into 
 flour and made into bread it is capable, if all 
 of it be used, of supplying, with the addition 
 of water as drink, what is sufficient to sup- 
 port life under circumstances favourable to 
 existence. In other words, a person can 
 manage to live on bread and water, if the 
 bread contain all the food principles of the 
 grain. 
 
 I have spoken here about wheat in its 
 entire form as wheat, that is to say, contain- 
 ing all the natural constituents. But before 
 wheat is turned into bread, it is subjected to 
 the process of grinding into flour, and in that 
 process the different parts of the wheat are 
 considerably modified according to the method 
 that is followed. 
 
 ON THE VALUES OF WHEATEN FLOURS USED 
 FOR BREAD. 
 
 I have several times spoken of flours used 
 for bread manufacture, and I ought, before I 
 proceed further, to define them more dis- 
 tinctly than has yet been done. 
 
 It is usual in ordinary conversation to
 
 WHEA T BREA D AND FLO URS. 53 
 
 speak of " firsts," " seconds," and " thirds " 
 in relation to flours, as if it were possible to 
 go to a baker's or a miller's and order, dis- 
 tinctively, flours of three known values firsts, 
 as better and dearer than seconds ; seconds, 
 as better and dearer than thirds. In such a 
 notion there is considerable error, in this day 
 at all events, whatever may have been the 
 case in an earlier time. At present we have 
 in 'the food market, practically, the following 
 classes. I have specimens of each variety 
 before me as I write, supplied to me by 
 a well-known miller, and I will explain from 
 them what is in the market as flour food. 
 
 Whites Flour. 
 
 There is a form of flour which most people 
 would call firsts, but which in the mill is 
 called " whites" This flour when it is made 
 from English wheat is derived from the best 
 and whitest kind of wheat. * In this flour the 
 wheat has been reduced to the finest powder, 
 and the outer portion of the wheat grain has 
 been carefully sifted away. The flour con- 
 sists of the dried gluten, not the whole of 
 it, but a considerable portion, and of the 
 interior or starchy part in full complement.
 
 54 WHEA T BREA D A ND FL URS. 
 
 This constitutes No. i, white flour. From 
 this flour the finest white bread is made. It 
 is against the general use of this flour, that 
 the Bread Reform League has protested. 
 
 Fine Middlings. 
 
 There is another form of flour called, com- 
 monly, fine middlings ftotir, or sometimes 
 seconds flour. This flour is usually produced 
 from English wheat. It is derived from what 
 is technically known as red wheat ; or it is pro- 
 duced from a rather inferior class of English 
 wheat ; or, again, it is produced from imper- 
 fect foreign wheats. It differs from " whites" 
 or "firsts" in matter of colour. It is of 
 darker colour, and it produces a darker and 
 often a softer or more doughy bread, but it 
 does not differ from the whiter flour by 
 having in it the external part of the wheat 
 grain. It is, like the whiter flour, composed 
 of the gluten and starch chiefly ; but some- 
 times it contains more soluble albuminous 
 substance than the finer variety, and for that 
 reason it does not yield so firm and elastic a 
 sponge, or so firm and crisp a bread. 
 
 Coarse Middlings. 
 There is a third kind of flour which is
 
 WHEA T BREA D AND FL O URS. 55 
 
 called "coarse middlings," or "sharps" and 
 which consists of a coarse flour or meal. It is 
 sometimes called also "coarse" or "bran" 
 flour, because it has a coarse, dark appear- 
 ance, with evidences of bran, finely ground, 
 dispersed through it. In this flour there 
 remains a great part of the external layers 
 of the wheat grain. 
 
 Whole Meal. 
 
 There is a fourth variety of wheat, to 
 which the name of "whole meal" has been 
 applied, and about which a great deal has 
 been spoken and written during these last 
 two years, and towards the value of which, as 
 an article of food, Miss Yates has rendered 
 such excellent service. The whole meal 
 flour contains everything belonging to the 
 wheat grain except the most outer parts of 
 the grain, the hard woody portions, which, 
 being indigestible and irritating, do not admit 
 of being taken as food. 
 
 Gramilar Decorticated Flour. 
 
 An improvement on the ordinary whole 
 
 meal flour has been recently introduced in 
 
 the decorticated or granulated flour, which 
 
 Dr. Morfit has done much to perfect. In
 
 56 WHEA T BREA D AND FLO URS. 
 
 the decorticated whole meal, the extreme 
 outer coating of the wheat grain is removed, 
 in the first instance, by a special process of 
 abrading, and then the whole of the grain is 
 reduced to flour. 
 
 The decorticated whole meal flour contains 
 the entire edible food of the wheat the 
 mineral food, the soluble albuminoids, the 
 fibrin, the starch, and all the derivatives 
 from the starchy base. It is not so white 
 a flour as the " whites," not, perhaps, so 
 white as the household flour or the seconds ; 
 but it is claimed for it that it is the perfect 
 flour, containing in itself all the nourishment 
 which wheat can supply, and yielding, there- 
 fore, a perfect bread for life-sustaining 
 purposes. 
 
 Another kind of flour derived from wheat 
 and I have nothing to do in this work 
 with any other grain than wheat is called 
 " high ground flour." The flour thus defined 
 is not ground between stones, but crushed. 
 It contains all the constituents of the wheat 
 grain except the bran, and in many respects 
 resembles the decorticated or granulated 
 wheat flour. 
 
 In estimating the value of these different
 
 WHEA T BREAD AND FL O URS. 57 
 
 flours, we must consider what it is we want 
 to recommend in the way of bread for the 
 bread consumer before we give an opinion. 
 If we want a white loaf, if we wish to supply 
 a loaf in which the process of yeast fermen- 
 tation has been carried out in its production 
 on the steadiest principle of working, we 
 must commend the flour called "whites" or 
 firsts. If we want a loaf of a similar kind, 
 but less white and of cheaper quality, then 
 we must commend the " household flour " or 
 " seconds." If we want a loaf which has 
 in it all the nutrient material for bone, muscle, 
 brain, as well as for working power, then we 
 must insist on whole meal.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FERMENTATION AND AERATION. A CONTRAST. 
 
 CHANGES DURING FERMENTATION. 
 
 HE flours above named, when sub- 
 
 jected to the fermentation process 
 in order to be turned into bread, 
 are somewhat differently acted 
 upon according to their quality or character. 
 
 To understand the changes properly, it is 
 best to begin with the fine wheat flour from 
 which the bran has been removed, because, 
 for reasons which will become plain as the 
 description progresses, in this flour the 
 fermentation is steadiest and most reliable. 
 
 CHANGES DURING THE FIRST STEP. 
 
 The object of mixing together potatoes, 
 yeast, and flour in the first step (see page 1 8) 
 is to produce a fermenting basis. In boiling
 
 FERMENTA TIGN A ND A ERA TION 59 
 
 the potatoes, which are rich in starch, the 
 starch granules are broken through, and the 
 yeast is allowed to reach the starch enclosed 
 in the walls of the cells. If the starch cells 
 were not broken, the yeast would not produce 
 its effect of transforming the starch into a sub- 
 stance, which is necessary before a second 
 required change takes place. The warm 
 water is added to make an efficient mixture 
 of the ingredients. The flour is added, ac- 
 cording to the common saying, to feed the 
 yeast. The part which the flour plays is that 
 it assists the fermentation. In the flour there 
 exists, as already indicated, a portion of flesh- 
 forming substance called crude gluten, and 
 some other soluble albuminous substance. 
 Under the action of the yeast, aided by the 
 soluble albuminous substance, the broken-up 
 starch is attacked, and is partly converted into 
 dextrin and maltose and glucose sugars, with 
 formation of some carbonic acid, under the 
 influence of which " the rising or coming to a 
 head " is followed by the fall of the dough. 
 
 CHANGES DURING THE SECOND AND THIRD 
 
 STEPS. 
 
 During the second step, when the ferment
 
 60 FERMEKTA T2ON A ND AERA TION. 
 
 is added to and mixed with the flour to form 
 the sponge (see pages 19-21), the fermenta- 
 tion is continued, more carbonic acid is pro- 
 duced by the fermentation, and the mass rises 
 and falls twice, as we have seen. Then when 
 the remaining flour, the salt, and the water are 
 added, the dough is formed, and in it, as pro- 
 ducts of fermentation, alcohol and carbonic acid 
 are diffused. By the action of the carbonic 
 acid the dough is raised or lightened. 
 
 The mode in which the dough is raised 
 under the action of the gas is very interesting. 
 The gas, it might be supposed, when thrown 
 off so freely, would simply force out its way 
 and escape, leaving a heavy or pasty sub- 
 stance behind. This is not the case. The 
 escape of the gas is interrupted by the 
 gluten, which, being thick and tenacious, 
 entangles it and is distended by it much as a 
 sponge is distended with water, from which 
 analogy the term " the sponge " is probably 
 taken. 
 
 The origin of the carbonic acid which 
 causes the rising of the dough is now well 
 understood. It comes from the primary and 
 secondary action of the ferment on the 
 starchy parts of the flour. In the primary
 
 A CONTRAST. 61 
 
 steps, owing to the action of the heat and of 
 the ferments, the starch is converted into dex- 
 trin and sugars, maltose and glucose : next 
 under the influence of the yeast-ferment part 
 of these are converted into alcohol and car- 
 bonic acid. 
 
 The dough, which has by this time been 
 formed, consists then of gluten distended with 
 carbonic acid gas, like a sponge ; of starch, 
 changed into the soluble form by the action 
 of heat and the albuminous and yeast fer- 
 ments; of the salt that has been added during 
 the admixture ; of some saccharine princi- 
 ples ; of water and of a certain measure of 
 alcohol diffused through the water and through 
 the dough by the water. The carbonic acid 
 and the alcohol have been developed out of 
 the materials that have been used, that is, 
 out of the flour. Some of the albuminoid 
 parts of the flour have been broken up in 
 forwarding the process of fermentation; and 
 some of the starchy or amylaceous parts 
 of the flour have been broken up under 
 the effect of the yeast-ferment, in order to 
 furnish the carbonic acid, and the necessary 
 accompaniment of that acid, alcohol.
 
 62 FERMENT A TION A ND AERA TION. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH 
 FERMENTATIVE STEPS. 
 
 In the fourth step (see page 22) nothing 
 occurs beyond the mechanical changes of 
 shape in the manufacture of the loaf, and the 
 continuance, in some degree, of fermentation. 
 In the fifth stage (see pages 22, 23), when 
 the loaf is exposed to the high temperature 
 in the oven, a new series of changes occurs. 
 The carbonic acid and the alcohol are driven 
 off from the dough ; a large quantity of 
 water is given off; an external crust is 
 formed, and the solid condition which specia- 
 lizes bread from dough is brought about. 
 The cellular structure seen in bread is the 
 indication of the distention to which the 
 structure has been subjected by the gas 
 during the fermentative ebullition. 
 
 THE AERATED PROCESS. 
 
 By the aerated process of making bread 
 all the destructive influence of fermentation 
 is prevented. There is no chemical decom- 
 position of the flour whatever, and therefore 
 no loss of material, while the rising of the 
 dough is just as effectively carried out. The 
 aerated bread contains, therefore, all the glu-
 
 A CONTRAST. 63 
 
 ten and all the albuminous food of the wheat, 
 out of which the living tissues are constructed, 
 as well as the food which ministers to the 
 animal warmth and vital activity. 
 
 It is sometimes said by those who do not 
 understand the subject that the fermentative 
 is a mechanical, the aerated a chemical process. 
 The reverse is the fact. The manufacture of 
 bread by fermentation is a chemical process in 
 the strictest sense of the word. During the act 
 of fermentation the dough is a true laboratory, 
 in which carbonic acid and alcohol are made 
 on an extensive scale. The alcohol is finally 
 dissipated, but the carbonic acid is used for 
 the same intention as when it is diffused by 
 Dauglish's method from the reservoir. The 
 aerated process, except in so far as the prelimi- 
 narygenerationof carbonic acid is concerned, is 
 entirely a mechanical procedure, in and during 
 which the dough is, chemically, unaffected. 
 
 Owing to the circumstance that no chemical 
 change is produced by the aerated process, 
 the whole proceeding is rendered peculiarly 
 steady, efficient, and direct, without the inter- 
 vention of hand labour. Everything is carried 
 on with measured accuracy, the quality of the 
 flours used having no important bearing upon
 
 64 FERMENTA TION A ND A ERA TION. 
 
 the process. This is a matter of very great 
 moment in respect both to the economy of the 
 manufacture and the quality of the product. 
 
 When the baker is producing bread by the 
 fermenting process, he is exposed to the 
 risk of exciting changes beyond what he 
 desires. The presence of a little excess of 
 the soluble albuminous ferments in his flour 
 obliges him to take measures for checking 
 an excess of fermentation. He therefore 
 resorts to different measures which experi- 
 ence has taught him are most effective. At 
 one time, in order to neutralise the deteriora- 
 tion which the gluten of flour undergoes by 
 keeping, and thereby to prevent rapidity of 
 fermentative changes, sulphate of copper was 
 sometimes added to the flour. The late Baron 
 Liebig, in 1855, suggested the addition of lime 
 in a state of solution without heat. After 
 having kneaded the flour with water and 
 lime-water, the baker, following Liebig's pro- 
 cess, added the yeast, and left the dough to 
 itself, supplying a remaining portion of flour 
 to the fermented dough at the proper time. 
 This, it was said, yielded an excellent elastic, 
 spongy bread, free from acid and of agree- 
 able taste. The proportions of flour and
 
 A CONTRAST. 65 
 
 lime-water employed were in the ratio of 
 19 to 5 ; and as the quantity of liquid in 
 lime-water was not sufficient for converting 
 the flour into dough, a sufficiency of ordinary 
 water was added. The quantity of lime con- 
 tained in this bread was small, 160 ounces of 
 lime requiring more than 300 quarts of water 
 for solution, while the yield of bread was 
 thought to be improved. Nineteen pounds 
 of flour kneaded without lime-water gave 
 twenty-four and a-half pounds of bread ; the 
 same quantity of flour kneaded with five 
 quarts of added lime-water produced twenty- 
 six pounds six ounces of bread. 
 
 I name Liebig's process because it shows 
 that even great chemists had to devote their 
 attention to the losses entailed through fer- 
 mentation ; and this plan by the great German 
 chemist was probably the best of its kind, 
 but it did not at any time become very 
 popular. 
 
 The agent chiefly used in the bakeries has 
 been alum. The people think that alum is 
 employed to produce whiteness of bread. 
 That result, if obtained by it, is indirect. 
 The great advantage of alum is to check too 
 rapid fermentation, and it is added, practically, 
 
 5
 
 66 PER MEN! A TION A ND A ERA TION. 
 
 in proportion as it is required for that intent. 
 Hence the inferior breads are more likely to 
 be charged with alum than those made from 
 the finer sorts of wheaten flour. 
 
 By the aerated process not one of these 
 chemical measures is ever demanded. Alum 
 would interfere seriously with the working of 
 the process, and render the production of a 
 good loaf, by aeration, impossible. 
 
 The contrast between the two processes, 
 fermentation and aeration, stands out prac- 
 tically best in the manufacture of whole meal 
 bread. The flour from which whole meal 
 bread is made contains an albuminous sub- 
 stance called cerealine. This albuminous 
 substance sets up, by the ordinary method 
 of manufacture, such rapid primary fer- 
 mentation that the secondary part of the 
 fermenting process, the production of the 
 sponge, is rendered nearly impossible. The 
 bread has, consequently, to be produced by 
 two processes of fermentation. A sponge has 
 first to be made out of white wheaten flour, 
 and the whole meal has next to be added, 
 the result being a loaf, which is really not of 
 whole meal, but a mixture of whole meal and 
 white meal.
 
 A CONTRAST. 
 
 67 
 
 By the aerated process no such complicate 
 proceeding is at all required. The whole 
 meal is put at once, like the finest flour, into 
 the mixer ; it is there directly brought into 
 combination with the carbonic acid con- 
 densed in the water, and, by the one act, 
 the dough is transformed into a condition fit 
 for the oven. There are thus secured three 
 economies, one of labour, a second of time, 
 a third of material.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY ADVANTAGES TO THE 
 WORKMEN BY THE AERATED SYSTEM OF 
 BREAD MANUFACTURE. 
 
 was of opinion that the 
 advantages of his system of bread 
 manufacture might be summed up 
 under the following heads : 
 
 1. It does away entirely with fermentation 
 and with all those chemical changes which, 
 in the constituents of the flour, are con- 
 sequent upon it. 
 
 2. It avoids the loss consequent upon the 
 decomposition of the portion of starch or 
 glucose consumed in the process of fer- 
 mentation, a loss of from 3 to 6 per cent., 
 which he estimated as of about the value of 
 ,5,000,000 in the total quantity of bread 
 made, annually, in the United Kingdom.
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY ADVANTAGES. 6<; 
 
 3. It reduces the time required to prepare 
 a batch of dough from a period of from eight 
 to ten hours to less than thirty minutes. 
 
 4. Its results are absolutely certain and 
 uniform. 
 
 5. It does away with the necessity for the 
 use of alum with poor flour, and the tempta- 
 tion to use alum with every kind of flour. 
 
 6. It has the recommendation of absolute 
 and entire cleanliness, the human hand not 
 touching the dough nor the bread from the 
 beginning of the process to the end. Even 
 in weighing the dough, if a piece must be 
 added to turn the scale, it' is added by the 
 use of a knife and fork. 
 
 7. The journeymen are relieved from a 
 circumstance most destructive to their health, 
 that of inhaling the flour dust in the process 
 of kneading. Their places of work, always 
 above ground, can easily be well ventilated ; 
 their hours of work need never be more than 
 the usual hours in ordinary occupations, with 
 the recognised hours for meals ; where a busi- 
 ness may be so large as to necessitate night 
 work, there may be separate sets of hands 
 for day and for night work, and each set of 
 hands may be able to change from night to
 
 70 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 day-work in alternate weeks, as is done in 
 some other trades and occupations. 
 
 8. Its tendency is to produce a healthier 
 condition of the baking trade, and thereby 
 to diminish to a great extent the induce- 
 ments which lead to the extensive system 
 of fraud now practised upon the public by 
 the production of adulterated and inferior 
 bread. 
 
 9. It effects an immense saving in the 
 material from another source, namely, by 
 preventing the sacrifice of the nutritive por- 
 tion of the grain, hitherto lost as human 
 food, by the method of grinding and dressing 
 necessary in the preparation of flour for 
 making white bread by fermentation. 
 
 10. Together with the preservation of a 
 large proportion of the entire quantity of 
 wheat converted into flour, there is also the 
 important result of the proportion preserved 
 (the cerealine), being a most powerful agent 
 in promoting the easy and healthy digestion 
 of food. This agent is retained uninjured 
 by the aerated bread process, but is destroyed 
 by the process of panary fermentation. 
 
 Respecting these different advantages, we 
 may accept the statement of them as remain-
 
 ECONOMIC A ND SA NIT A RY ADVA NTA GES. 7 1 
 
 ing as truthful as they were at the date when 
 they were originally described. 
 
 The economical advantages of the aerated 
 system put forth by the inventor of the 
 system, are certainly still deserving of a 
 prominent place. At a time such as the 
 present, when we are depending upon other 
 countries for our supplies of grain to the 
 extent of nearly two-thirds of those supplies, 
 it is of the utmost importance to secure 
 for the nation a system of bread manufacture 
 that shall save to the nation all that can be 
 saved. It may be said with perfect truthful- 
 ness of the aerated system, that it saves all 
 that can be saved ; in other words, it sacrifices 
 nothing that is fit for consumption as food, 
 while it utilizes every wholesome and nutri- 
 tious part that can be obtained from the grain. 
 
 At the same time, in the bread made by 
 this system there is nothing retained that is 
 not useful, pleasant, and beneficial. All the 
 old objections which were originally made to 
 aerated bread, if there was ever ground for 
 them, certainly do not exist in the slight- 
 est degree now. The general expression of 
 opinion is that the bread is extremely plea- 
 sant to taste, and so much is it approved of
 
 72 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 that large numbers of persons take it with 
 them out of town, because they prefer the 
 flavour of it to that possessed by any other 
 form of bread, and because it does not 
 produce acidity. 
 
 I may leave the above-named objection to 
 what is commonly called the " taste " of bread 
 consumers. A more important point is the 
 healthiness and cleanliness of the aerated pro- 
 cess. Here there can be no doubt that the 
 process offers immeasurable advantages, first 
 to the workmen who make the bread, and 
 next to the public for whom they make it. 
 
 ADVANTAGES TO THE WORKMEN. 
 
 Of all the evils that have arisen with the 
 practice of bread manufacture, one of the 
 greatest of them appears to be the long hours 
 of night and day work to which the men are 
 subjected. This fact has long been recog- 
 nized. A statute of Elizabeth expressly 
 states the hours to be from five a.m. to be- 
 tween seven and eight p.m. between March 
 and September, with two and a half hours 
 for meals, and from " spring of day " until 
 " the night of the same day " between Sep- 
 tember and March. Day-work only was
 
 ECONOMIC A ND SA NIT A RY ADVA NT A GES. 73 
 
 then permitted, and the item for candles is 
 supposed to have been for those used for 
 examining the state of the bread in the ovens, 
 as we now use gas. Later on, however, 
 night-work was introduced, the introduction 
 being largely due to the origin of a class 
 of men called "factors." These were a sort 
 of middlemen between the millers and the 
 bakers. The bakers having no interest in 
 keeping down the price, the millers were 
 enabled to realize large profits, and the coun- 
 try millers, by allowing these factors a pre- 
 mium on the sale of their flour, disposed of 
 considerable quantities. The country millers 
 also became proprietors of bakers' shops, in 
 which they put a journeyman, and allowed 
 him from five to seven shillings a sack for his 
 labour and charge. These men were in the 
 habit of availing themselves of the assistance 
 of their friends after working hours. This 
 system of helping their friends gradually 
 grew into a custom, and was at last enforced 
 as a right by those, in commission, when they 
 became proprietors of the shops they were 
 put in to superintend. Hence the origin of 
 night-work among bakers, an origin which 
 has now become part of a fixed system of
 
 74 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 work, owing to the necessities of the time 
 and the urgent demand that there is in all 
 our large cities for the early morning loaf. 
 The grievances which have been enforced 
 by this practice have been and are extreme. 
 They have often formed matter for parlia- 
 mentary consideration. This was the case 
 in 1848, when various details of the most 
 painful kind were disclosed, and were con- 
 sidered as beyond dispute. This was again 
 the case in 1862, at which period Parliament 
 was so impressed, by what it was forced to 
 listen to, that the Secretary of State for 
 the Home Department thought it right to 
 order a searching and minute investigation 
 not only into the grievances complained of, 
 but also into the methods of bread-making, 
 the places in which it was made, and the 
 age and health of the men occupied in 
 making it, with a view to remedy and, if 
 possible, improve the existing conditions. 
 
 The inquiry thus instituted was entrusted 
 to Mr. Hugh Seymour Tremenhere, and 
 the result of Mr. Tremenhere's inquiries 
 on this subject was embodied in a letter 
 addressed to Sir George Grey, Her Majesty's 
 principal Secretary of State for the Home
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY ADVANTAGES. 75 
 
 t . 
 
 Department, in which the propositions recom- 
 mended for legislative consideration are the 
 following : 
 
 1. That no youth under eighteen be 
 allowed to work in a bakehouse later than 
 nine p.m., or earlier than five a.m. 
 
 2. That bakehouses be placed under in- 
 spection, and subjected to certain regulations 
 in regard to ventilation, cleanliness, etc. ; 
 and : 
 
 3. That it would be desirable that the pro- 
 visions of the Act " for Preventing the Adul- 
 teration of Articles of Food " should be made 
 more effectual. 
 
 These were the only measures Mr. Tre- 
 menhere felt justified in submitting to the 
 judgment of Parliament ; but there was an 
 important subject to which he considered it 
 desirable to direct the attention of the 
 journeymen bakers, their employers, and the 
 public at large, as not only involving great 
 prospective benefits to the journeymen, but 
 certain economical and other advantages to 
 the community, which would be considered of 
 no small value when the conditions of the 
 places in which the bread is not unfrequently 
 made were more generally known. This sub-
 
 76 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 ject was the introduction of machinery in the 
 process of bread-making, in the discussion 
 of which Dr. Dauglish's system of making 
 what is called aerated bread was commented 
 upon and commended. 
 
 In the report here referred to it was shown' 
 that, as a general rule, the work of a London 
 journeyman baker begins at about eleven 
 o'clock at night, at which time " he makes the 
 dough." This is a laborious process, and lasts 
 from half an hour to three-quarters of an hour, 
 according to the size of the batch or the 
 labour required. He then lies down upon 
 the kneading board, which is also the cover- 
 ing of the trough in which the dough is 
 " made," and with one sack under him, and 
 another rolled up under his head for a pillow, 
 he sleeps for about two hours. He is then 
 engaged, continuously, for about five hours, 
 " throwing out the dough," " scaling it off,'* 
 moulding it, putting it into the oven, taking it 
 out of the oven and carrying it to the shop. 
 When the bread and roll making is ended, 
 the distribution of it begins, and a consider- 
 able proportion of the men thus employed 
 during the night are also upon their legs for 
 many hours in the day, carrying baskets or
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY ADVANTAGES. 77 
 
 wheeling hand carts, or being in the bake- 
 house at work again. Some of these men 
 leave off work at various hours, between one 
 and six p.m., according to the season of the 
 year or the amount of their master's business, 
 while others are engaged again in the bake- 
 house " bringing out " more batches, until 
 late in the afternoon. 
 
 The temperature of a bakehouse ranges 
 from about 75 to upwards of 90 Fahr., 
 and in the smaller bakehouses approximates 
 usually to the higher rather than to the lower 
 degree of heat. It is self-evident that the 
 loss of the usual hours of sleep, and the hard 
 and continuous work for many hours in such 
 a temperature as that of bakehouses in general, 
 must have a great effect in undermining the 
 constitutions of the youths employed, and in 
 laying the foundation of that liability to 
 various diseases by which the average life of 
 a baker is reduced to the age of forty-two. 
 
 Mr. Tremenhere proposed that bakehouses 
 should be placed under inspection, and in 
 support of this proposition stated, from evi- 
 dence taken, the following facts : The 
 locality in which the bread of London is 
 made is what in houses in general is the coal-
 
 78 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 hole and the front kitchen, the back kitchen 
 being used to store away the flour with the 
 other things in daily use. The ovens are 
 usually under the street, but in some cases 
 the arrangements are reversed and the ovens 
 are at the back of the house, and the front 
 space is used partly for the flour and partly 
 for the manual portions of the work. Mr. 
 John Bennett stated in his evidence that 
 " many bakehouses in London were in a 
 shockingly filthy state, arising from imperfect 
 sewerage and bad ventilation and neglect ; 
 that the bread, therefore, during the process of 
 fermentation, became impregnated with the 
 noxious gases surrounding it ; and that many 
 journeymen bakers in London slept under 
 the pavement in the bakehouses." Another 
 witness said, that "the places where he had 
 worked had almost always been arches under 
 the ground, with no means of ventilation 
 except through the doors. These were, 
 generally, fearfully hot, and many of them 
 infested with vermin. The bakehouses were 
 also often so close to the drains that they 
 smelt very bad. It was a common practice 
 to lock the bakehouses at night, while the 
 men were at work ; consequently, there being
 
 ECONOMIC AND SANITARY AD VANTA GES. 79 
 
 no ventilation except through the doors, it 
 was very stifling, and apt to injure the men's 
 health." 
 
 Over twenty years have passed since 
 the above-named facts were written, and I 
 regret to say that no broad satisfactory im- 
 provement has been made for the health 
 of the men who are engaged in the manu- 
 facture of bread by the fermentation process. 
 While this treatise, indeed, has been in hand 
 there has been a great public clamour once 
 again on the subject of bakers and their 
 grievances, so that parliamentary enquiry 
 may very soon be expected once more to 
 take place. 
 
 Dauglish, by his labour, proposed a simple 
 method, which, if carried out universally, 
 as it might be most easily and practically, and 
 as it is by the company which he founded, 
 would render the process of bread manufac- 
 ture as healthy for the working community 
 as any other industrial pursuit, and indeed 
 healthier than any other which is carried on 
 during the night. Further, I do not conceal 
 my own personal opinion that if the system 
 were generally known and practised, the 
 necessity for night work itself would, as Dr.
 
 80 THE AERATED SYSTEM. 
 
 Dauglish expected, cease to exist, since 
 nothing but the very bad habit of wishing 
 for newly-made fermented bread keeps up 
 the injurious competition for which night 
 work is demanded.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PUBLIC ADVANTAGES OF AERATED BREAD, IN j 
 RELATION TO HEALTH. 
 
 |P to the present point of the inquiry 
 into the Dauglish process of bread 
 manufacture I have dealt almost 
 exclusively with the manufacturing 
 details of the process, and with the compari- 
 sons that are obvious as between it and the 
 method in which fermentation is resorted to 
 as a means for rendering wheaten dough light 
 and fitted for bread. 
 
 There have, at the same time, been 
 adduced, incidentally, certain facts which bear 
 upon the public advantages of the Dauglish 
 system. 
 
 I may now summarise these advantages : 
 i. The whole value of the edible part of
 
 82 PUBLIC AD VANTA GES 
 
 the grain employed is utilized. There is no 
 waste whatever. 
 
 2. Every class of edible flour of wheaten 
 kind, which is that commonly used, can 
 be directly made into bread by the process. 
 
 3. No chemical agencies or agents are 
 brought into contact with the flour, except 
 the necessary carbonic acid, and that in a 
 purely mechanical way. 
 
 4. No foreign agents, such as salts of 
 copper, alum, or lime, are required for any 
 purpose. They, indeed, would only interrupt 
 and spoil the process. 
 
 5. The utmost cleanliness attends every 
 step of the proceeding. The flour is un- 
 touched by the hand; the dough is untouched 
 either by hand or foot ; the dough is never 
 exposed to the fumes of the bakehouse, nor 
 to the emanations escaping from the breath 
 and the skin of the workmen ; so soon as ever 
 the dough escapes from the mixer it falls into 
 the baking tin, and is instantly conveyed to 
 the oven. 
 
 6. The workmen are saved many hours of 
 exhaustive labour, and enjoy freedom from 
 the injuries arising from the inhalation of 
 dust and exposure to impure air. To what
 
 OF AERATED BREAD. 83 
 
 extent they are saved danger in their work, 
 compared with those who are engaged in the 
 fermentation process, can only be believed 
 by persons who have made special inquiries 
 into the subject. Dr. Guy, in his admirable 
 and painstaking research on this subject, 
 discovered amongst one hundred and eleven 
 journeymen bakers one hundred and twenty- 
 five diseases, or more than one disease for 
 each man engaged in the fermenting process. 
 
 It is impossible to gainsay the many and 
 great advantages of the aerated system. But 
 is there anything that may be gainsaid ? If 
 there be, it must be something connected 
 with habit or custom, not with the aerated 
 bread itself as an article of food. 
 
 In the household nothing but good can be 
 told in regard to the appearance of the bread, 
 the cleanliness of it, the purity of it. 
 
 It is made in the same shapes as other 
 bread, in tinned loaves, in loaves of Paris 
 shape, in rolls, in loaves of different sizes. It 
 is made from flours of best qualities, from 
 white flour and from whole meal. 
 
 It is so cleanly that it is all but impossible, 
 even by accident, for any foreign substance 
 to get into it. Hairs, remnants of nails,
 
 P US LIC ADVA NT A GES 
 
 debris from tubs, troughs, and boards, in 
 form of splinters of wood and fragments of 
 flannel or cloth, are impossible impurities in 
 it. 
 
 It does not undergo the sour or acid change 
 which is sometimes met with in fermented 
 breads. It never contains agents, like alum, 
 used for the purpose of giving it whiteness, 
 or for stopping secondary fermentation. 
 
 At one time it was said to become more 
 quickly dry than the fermented bread. This 
 was because it held less water in combination 
 with it, and was therefore a more condensed 
 food. Goodness or badness on this point 
 was matter of opinion, and as opinion seemed 
 to favour the possession of a bread which 
 retained its moisture, the public wish was 
 responded to by the modification of detail of 
 manufacture called the wine-whey process, of 
 which a description has already beep supplied, 
 The aerated bread now is as free from dry- 
 ness as any bread that is made. It does 
 not dry up, but retains the right quantity of 
 water, free from every acidified change, and 
 free from mouldiness or other indication of 
 decomposition, longer than other bread, so 
 that it can be used in the family up to the
 
 OF AERA TED BREA D. 85 
 
 last if the most moderate care be taken in 
 preserving it. 
 
 It was at one time objected to the bread 
 that it was deficient in flavour, or that it 
 wanted the flavours common to some kinds 
 of fermented bread. For my own part, I 
 have no recollection of this ever having been 
 the case ; but if it were, the objection could 
 only have been reasonable at some very early 
 stage in the development of the aerated 
 method. At present, and for a long period 
 past, the flavour of the bread has been all 
 that could be desired by the most delicate 
 critic ; and, indeed, many choose the bread 
 because of its excellent flavour and taste, and 
 miss it very much if, from any cause, they are 
 temporarily unable to obtain it. This which 
 is very distinctly my own experience, is so 
 largely shared by others, that many, as 
 before stated, carry the bread out of town 
 rather than be deprived the advantages of 
 it as food. 
 
 It has yet to be asked whether, as an article 
 of food, aerated bread is as digestible and as 
 nutritive as the bread made by the fermenta- 
 tion process. 
 
 The first-named quality, that of digesti-
 
 86 P UBLIC AD VANTA GES 
 
 bility, comes first in respect to value, because 
 if the bread be not easily digestible, its mere 
 value as a food, determined from the point of 
 view of its chemical value, were of secondary 
 consequence. It is most important therefore 
 to inquire into its true position as a digestible 
 food. 
 
 On this question I venture to speak with 
 such authority, and no more, as comes from 
 studied observation daily carried out for the 
 past ten years, at least. From this experience 
 I derive the following conclusions, which will, 
 I feel sure, be confirmed by every unpre- 
 judiced physician who will take the same 
 trouble and labour to arrive at the facts as 
 I have done. 
 
 i. The aerated bread never produces 
 acidity in the stomach. Even if it be taken 
 after it has been cut for some hours and 
 exposed to the air, it does not cause either 
 acid eructation, or the burning and the heart- 
 burn which are often induced by bread that 
 has been incompletely made by the fermenta- 
 tion process. The reason for this is that it 
 does not undergo any acidifying change by 
 exposure to air, does not carry free acid into 
 the stomach, and does not carry any sub-
 
 OF A ERA TED BREA D. 
 
 stance into the stomach that can sustain fer- 
 mentative changes within that organ. 
 
 2. The bread, being free from any and 
 every astringent substance, like alum, does 
 not cause irritation of the stomach, nor dis- 
 tention, nor sense of constriction. It does 
 not constipate. 
 
 3. The bread carries with it no foreign 
 hard mechanical particles which are apt to 
 lead to mechanical irritation, and to make the 
 stomach indifferent to the digestion of other 
 foods or drinks which may be taken along 
 with it. 
 
 4. The bread is digested quickly and easily. 
 This is the common experience of all who 
 become accustomed to it. It causes no de- 
 pression after being taken, nor feeling of 
 weight, nor palpitation, nor irregular circula- 
 tion, symptoms which are often observed 
 after the use of imperfectly fermented breads. 
 
 5. The bread mixes excellently with other 
 foods. It is, if I may so say, essentially 
 soluble. It goes well with water, and well 
 with milk. 
 
 These indications of the action of aerated 
 bread are proofs of its worth as a digestible 
 food, and render it of much value in the cases
 
 P UBLIC A D VA NTA GES 
 
 of children and of those who are advanced 
 in life. I do not adduce this in any dis- 
 paragement of it for adults and for persons 
 of middle life, because, in fact, it is good at 
 every age. I name it in particular reference 
 to the ages I have specially noticed. 
 
 Dauglish made a singularly happy series 
 of observations on the matter of the digesti- 
 bility of the bread manufactured on his plan 
 as compared with some effects of fermented 
 breads. He argued that the injurious effects 
 often resulting from the use of fermented 
 bread are attributable first to the acetic acid 
 or vinegar, which is produced in large quan- 
 tities in such bread, in hot weather, by the 
 oxidation, from atmospheric contact, of the 
 alcohol generated in the process of fermen- 
 tation ; and, secondly, to the yeast plant which 
 is rapidly propagated during the act of fer- 
 mentation, the life of the yeast plant being 
 frequently not destroyed by the baking 
 when that is ineffectively carried out. Bread 
 so modified from the required condition is, 
 he says, most indigestible when the functions 
 of digestion are naturally weak : from the 
 development of the yeast plant in the 
 stomach, and the consequent setting up of
 
 OF AERATED BREAD. 89 
 
 the alcoholic fermentation to derange the 
 whole process of digestion and assimilation. 
 Again, he adds, there is the alum when 
 that is used, the very purpose of which is to 
 prevent the solution of gluten at a time when 
 it is most desirable, and the very effect of 
 which is to cause the bread to enter the 
 stomach with a portion of gluten undissolved, 
 and unfit to afford proper nourishment. 
 
 The inventor of the aerated system was 
 not less happy in his observations upon the 
 practice of those primitive nations who sub- 
 sist almost exclusively on cereal and particu- 
 larly on bread foods. " The millions," he says, 
 " of India who feed chiefly on rice, take rice, 
 for the most part, simply boiled, while that 
 large portion of the human race who feed on 
 maize prepare it in many ways, but never 
 ferment it." The same is true of the potato 
 eater of Ireland and the oatmeal eater of 
 Scotland. Nor is wheat always subjected to 
 fermentation. In the less civilized states it 
 is first roasted and then ground. On the 
 borders of the Mediterranean it is prepared 
 in the form of maccaroni and vermicelli. In 
 the East it is made into hard cakes, or into 
 thick and dense masses of baked flour and
 
 90 PUBLIC AD VANTA GES 
 
 water. Even in our own nurseries wheaten 
 flour is baked before it is prepared, with milk, 
 for infants' food. 
 
 The necessity of subjecting wheaten grain 
 to these manipulations arises, Dauglish insists, 
 from its richness in gluten. If a little flour 
 be taken in the mouth, the starchy matter is 
 easily dissolved by the saliva and swallowed, 
 but the gluten remains, a thick, tenacious 
 pellet, which, if swallowed,- is extremely in- 
 digestible, because it cannot be penetrated 
 by the digestive solvents, which in that state 
 can only act on its small external surface ; 
 hence the necessity to prepare food from 
 wheat in such a manner as shall counteract 
 the tendency to cohere and form tenacious 
 masses. This is the object of baking the 
 flour, of making it into maccaroni, or of rais- 
 ing it into soft spongy bread. By all these 
 means an enormous surface is secured for the 
 action of the digestive juices, and this, he 
 believes, is the sole object to be sought 
 for in the preparation of bread from wheaten 
 flour. 
 
 I am myself of opinion that in the above 
 observations Dr. Dauglish has supplied 
 the most rational of all explanations bearing
 
 OF AERATED BREAD. 91 
 
 on the advantages of treating flour in the 
 manufacture of bread. The secret of success 
 lies in the distribution of the gluten over an 
 enormous surface, so that it may be readily 
 acted upon by the digestive fluids. A great 
 number of physiological chemical changes 
 (probably fermentation itself) are due to 
 this matter of distribution of surface. The 
 aeration of the blood in the lungs is brought 
 about by such distribution. The changes 
 which take place in the minute blood-vessels 
 of the extreme parts of the body are pro- 
 duced in a similar manner. 
 
 The best bread, therefore, and the most 
 easily digested, is that in which there is the 
 completest distribution of gluten, combined 
 with the fullest amount of that substance, and 
 uncontaminated by the presence of any foreign 
 substance, either introduced or produced by 
 the method of manufacture. 
 
 In the aerated bread we have a food in 
 which these conditions are fulfilled in the 
 most complete manner. The starch of the 
 bread is well cooked, and is ready for assimi- 
 lation and for becoming the fuel of the animal 
 furnace. The gluten, prepared in the most 
 elaborate form for subjection to the digestive
 
 92 PUBLIC A D VANTA GES 
 
 juices and for being made soluble by them, is 
 preserved in full quantity to fulfil its purposes 
 in the economy for the construction of the 
 vital tissues. 
 
 The aerated bread undergoes ready solu- 
 tion in the stomach. It does not produce 
 acidity ; it does not give rise to distension 
 nor flatulency ; it does not impair appetite by 
 causing indigestion. 
 
 The only serious objection I have ever heard 
 raised to the use of aerated bread is that it may 
 be too rich in nitrogenous food to suit those 
 who are constitutionally disposed to such affec- 
 tions as gout and chronic rheumatism. The 
 idea is entirely hypothetical, and is altogether 
 contradicted by the results of experience. 
 Persons who are of rheumatic and gouty dis- 
 position are often extremely disposed to 
 acidity, and require, more than others, foods 
 which are not liable to undergo fermentation 
 during the digestive process. To such per- 
 sons I find bread which has simply been 
 aerated the best of all cereal foods. It may 
 be given to them freely by merely withdraw- 
 ing a little animal food, if that be necessary, 
 and I have many times seen all the symptoms 
 of rheumatic and gouty indigestion disappear
 
 OF AERATED BREAD. 
 
 93 
 
 by the one act of substituting aerated for 
 fermented bread. 
 
 To those who require a rich nitrogenous 
 diet; to children who are muscularly feeble; 
 to persons who are suffering from diseases 
 attended with much muscular prostration; to 
 those who being in health are exposed to 
 great physical labour; to those who are in 
 declining years, the aerated bread is the best, 
 I think, that can be supplied, apart altogether 
 from its perfect cleanliness in manufacture 
 and its economy in production.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A BRIEF PERSONAL OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF 
 DR. DAUGLISH. 
 
 |T will interest many readers to have 
 at command the succeeding brief 
 outline of the life of the inventor 
 of the aerated system of bread 
 manufacture. The facts came into my 
 possession too late to be included in the 
 body of this work. 
 
 John Dauglish was born in the parish of 
 Bethnal Green, London, in the year 1824. He 
 was the son of William and Caroline Dauglish, 
 and on his mother's side was descended from 
 Sir Richard Baker, the well-known chronicler of 
 London. His father held a confidential position 
 in one of those large East Indian houses which 
 were swept away in the panic of 1847. The boy, 
 who manifested peculiarities at a very early age, 
 was educated at Dr. Alexander Allen's school at
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Hackney, but could never learn in class. He 
 always had to study alone. Having no verbal 
 memory, he yet retained facts with great facility; 
 and while he could scarcely learn a piece of 
 poetry or remember the conjugations of a Latin 
 verb, he enjoyed mathematical studies and de- 
 lighted in drawing. He had no gift for languages ; 
 it was an impossibility to master them, and even 
 in later life he could not overcome that difficulty ; 
 but he evinced mechanical talents at a very early 
 age, and constructed a steam engine, making all 
 the parts which most lads would have found it 
 necessary to buy, and with few tools and appli- 
 ances. He also while a boy invented a paddle- 
 wheel on new principles ; but when his model 
 was completed, he, to his intense mortification, 
 found that another mind had conceived the same 
 idea and had carried it into effect. His regret 
 was counterbalanced in some degree by the per- 
 fect working of the paddles, which were in every 
 respect like his own. 
 
 After leaving school, two or three different 
 paths in life opened out to him, but he was not 
 happy in any; and although he worked for a time 
 under his father, he was so evidently in his wrong 
 place, that his spirits were depressed and his 
 health seriously affected. During this period his 
 mind passed through successive stages of inquiry 
 and speculation. The philosophy of the German 
 school and of Carlyle were studied. He lived very 
 much apart, sought few acquaintances, and during 
 his most uncongenial occupation, spent a dreary
 
 LIFE OF DAUGLISH. 99 
 
 and saddened life. As he advanced in years his 
 views were much influenced by the teaching of 
 Maurice and Kingsley. 
 
 In 1848 Dr. Dauglish married the second 
 daughter of William Consett Wright, of Upper 
 Clapton. About this time he was much engaged 
 in literary pursuits. ,He contributed an article 
 to the British Quarterly on the Labour Question, 
 which was well thought of. 
 
 It was now suggested, by one who knew the 
 bent of his mind, that he should go to Edinburgh 
 to study for the medical profession. He took his 
 family there in February 1852, and for nearly 
 four years he devoted his energies to the necessary 
 studies. Here the early difficulties of his boyish 
 days were a source of great trouble. He had 
 much difficulty in mastering technicalities. He 
 was a good dissector, and obtained great praise 
 from Professor Goodsir, who always discerned true 
 industry and skill. He became assistant to 
 Professor Hughes Bennett, took the charge of an 
 extra microscopic class, and was also employed by 
 Professor Henderson. For all these gentlemen he 
 felt very deep esteem and gratitude. In chemistry 
 he studied under Professor Gregory, whose kindly 
 manners and friendliness caused his classes to be 
 very popular. 
 
 During his residence in Edinburgh, Dauglish 
 made but few acquaintances. His fellow students 
 thought him reserved and quiet, and, in student 
 fashion, bestowed upon him the cognomen of 
 " Shakespeare " ; from a fancied resemblance to
 
 ioo APPENDIX. 
 
 the great dramatist. He passed his examinations 
 well, but there was nothing particularly brilliant 
 in this part of his career. His thesis was 
 considered worthy of being bracketed with one 
 other for the gold medal. He took the M.D. 
 degree. 
 
 In November 1855 he came home from 
 college, with a new idea about making bread, 
 namely, that it would be possible to enclose flour 
 in an air-tight receptacle, and to force into it 
 aerated water, so as to render yeast unnecessary. 
 He had suffered so much from the dry insipid 
 bread of Edinburgh, that he had had bread made 
 at home ; and the uncertain nature of each batch, 
 with the difficulty of procuring good yeast, had 
 led him to make a series of experiments which 
 were the beginnings of his inventions. 
 
 At the conclusion of his medical studies he 
 went to Malvern to study hydropathy, and was 
 nearly a year there. During this period he was 
 steadily working out his inventions. Afterwards 
 moving to Brighton, he tried his first experi- 
 ments. He found a working mechanic, who made 
 a little model machine from his drawings. The 
 skill he possessed in mechanical drawing was 
 one of the chief factors in the success afterwards 
 obtained. No verbal explanation could have 
 conveyed the idea which the inventor was able 
 to demonstrate with perfect clearness on paper, 
 and he always supplied every working drawing 
 himself. 
 
 The model was complete; the various mixtures
 
 LIFE OF DA UGLISH. 101 
 
 for the production of carbonic acid gas were intro- 
 duced into it, the flour and the water. The experi- 
 menter watched the result with the usual anxiety. 
 An explosion or success, which would it be ? His 
 theory proved to be right, and he was convinced 
 that with perseverance it could be developed. 
 
 In 1856 Dr. Dauglish took out his first patent, 
 entitling it " An Invention of an improved Method 
 of Making Bread " ; and he wrote to Messrs. Carr, 
 of Carlisle, to ask their co-operation. In their 
 factory the model machine was erected, and the 
 " aerated bread " first made. The experiments 
 were perfectly successful, and here the name of 
 " aerated bread " was first suggested. It now 
 remained to bring the invention before the public, 
 to make it a successful monetary speculation. 
 
 But many troubles arose. Different large houses 
 took up the invention ; but from its novelty, from 
 the elementary construction of the machinery, 
 and from the difficulty of inducing workmen to 
 lay aside preconceived ideas of baking after fer- 
 menting, there were continual failures. The prin- 
 cipals were disgusted, and there was so much 
 worry and trouble that the inventor gave up the 
 struggle in despair, and taking up medical practice, 
 which he had laid for the time entirely aside, met 
 with sufficient success to warrant the belief that 
 he would become a successful physician. In spite 
 of this, his project could not be relinquished, and 
 again he determined to devote all his attention 
 to it, and to try once more whether it could not 
 be made successful.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The earnestness he displayed in his renewed 
 efforts led different friends to rally round him, and 
 at last a model bakery was erected at Islington. 
 
 Dr. Dauglish superintended every detail, and 
 the attempt proved to be a great success. Most 
 of the leading physicians of the day gave their 
 decided and unequivocal approval. The aerated 
 bread was introduced into various hospitals, and 
 with scarcely a dissentient voice the invention was 
 declared to be one of the most important and 
 useful of the day. 
 
 For a lecture delivered by Dr. Dauglish before 
 the Society of Arts, he gained the silver medal of 
 that Society. To the Press he was under great 
 obligations. Nearly every paper and magazine 
 followed the example of the Times in giving 
 publicity to a scheme so novel and practical. 
 
 Unhappily Dr. Dauglish quickly began to feel 
 how seriously these labours and anxieties had 
 affected his health. Although his object was in part 
 effected, he. could not rest. He was advised to go 
 abroad, and after many delays he took his wife 
 and children to Veytaux, on the Lake of Geneva. 
 He spent the winter of 1864 on this spot. At 
 first the' change of scene, the extreme dryness of 
 the atmosphere, and the elasticity of the air, 
 seemed to do him real good. His mind, however, 
 could not be diverted. He was always planning 
 new improvements, and was distressed by the 
 accounts of failures and losses which came from 
 England ; he got nervous and feeble, and began 
 to feel that he could only walk on level ground.
 
 LIFE OF DAUGLISH. 103 
 
 In the spring he was hastily summoned home 
 by important business, and left Switzerland with a 
 feeling of disappointment and distress. The winter 
 of i 864 was a season of deep anxiety. He re- 
 mained in London long enough to set matters 
 straight, but never himself recovered from the 
 effects of all this trouble. He sought health in 
 different places, and in August 1865 went to Paris, 
 intending to go southward, but the anxieties of 
 the past winter had proved too much for him 
 to bear. He became seriously ill in Paris, and 
 although the opinion of the physicians there was 
 not such as to cause great alarm, he desired most 
 anxiously to return to England, a desire which 
 was accomplished with difficulty. On his return 
 to London he consulted one of our most eminent 
 men, who gave the first unfavourable opinion, and 
 then went to Malvern, where, often before, he 
 had gained strength and health. Here, while his 
 serious illness much increased, he manifested the 
 utmost patience, his mind remaining clear, active, 
 and collected to the end. 
 
 Dr. Dauglish was in the midst of his family to 
 the very last evening of his life, taking interest 
 in their concerns, and going to bed more com- 
 fortably and hopefully than he had done for many 
 nights past. He sank from effusion of water in 
 the pericardium, and died painlessly on Sunday, 
 1 4th January, 1866, in the forty-second year of 
 his age. B. W. R.
 
 UGSB LIBRARY
 
 A 000 607 462 9