Bread, bakehouses, and bacteria : reprints of various papers / by F. J. Waldo and David Walsh.

  • Waldo, Frederick Joseph, 1852-
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bread, bakehouses, and bacteria : reprints of various papers / by F. J. Waldo and David Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    18/76 (page 12)
    law to purge the bakeries may be dismissed in a few words. Speaking generally, it may be said that with a few additions and alterations the present machinery would be ample, but that the difficulty is to set it in motion. Medical officers have no fixed standards of wholesomeness, and their inspectors are overworked men, burdened with a host of harassing routine duties. Above all, sanitary bodies are slow to act; they are loath to prosecute rate-paying trades- men, and there is hardly a vestry in London that does not include one or more influential master bakers among its members. It is obvious that the Medical Officer cannot act in opposition to the wishes of the vestry by which he is employed. In this brief paper it has been pointed out that under- ground bakeries exist in large numbers in London, and that a considerable proportion of them are unwholesome ; that in the opinion of competent authorities cellars cannot be converted into healthy bakehouses ; that these underground workshops constitute a possible danger to the bread-con- sumer, and a very real one to the bread-producer. Thirty-one years of tentative legislation has not sufficed to bring the baking trade within the grip of public health reformers. The time is now surely ripe for a searching Parliamentary inquiry, in order to stay the wanton waste of human life that is going on day by day in the cellar bakeries of this vast city.