The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-07-08
THE CONTAMINATION OF BREAD

For practically universal article of |
diet, bread seems to have received
little attention from psychologists. I
Usually handled by several persons, |
often exposed to flies and street dust,
sometimes tossed about under very
uncleanly conditions, bakers bread is
obviously. liable to pick up dangerous
bacterial contamination. If it is hand
led by typhoid carrier it is possible
Outside of the leaf. and since bread as
rule is eaten without heating and
VERY soon after 1t reaches the con-
sumner, 1t may readily be the means OF
conveying infection.
! Lumsden of the U. S. Public Health
and Marine Hospital service has traced
leases Of typhoid fever in the govern
ment hospital for the insane at Wash
lington, D. c., to the handling OF bread
| by an attendant who had been caring
for typhoid patient at his home.
1 Hinton has recently described sim
ilar occurrence in the Elgin state
I hospital where seven cases of typhoid
fever developed within few months
These were all In patients using the
general dining room for females. On
4 investig alton it was found that fe-
male attendant whose duty it was to
slice all the bread used in this dining
room had had typhoid fever three
years previously and was a carrier,
discharging typhoid bacilli. On De-
III ~
ferred to another department where
she did not handle uncooked food, and
no further cases of typhoid fever &C.
lcurred. :
q 1t is rarely possible to determine
with such precision as in the cases
cited the articles of uncooked food
that probably served as the vehicle OF
infection, and we can hardly doubt
that contaminated bread Is responsible
for scattered cases of typhoid more
frequently than is recognized. For
obvious reasons evidence is more
difficult to secure than in the case of
milk and water Kayser in his obser-
ivations on typhoid fever in Strasburg
found particularly high typhoid
mortality among bakers, possibly due
to their exposure to milk infection.
: In a recent number of the Journal of
: the American Medical Association APP
! pears paper on the bacterial contain
nation of bread which is timely con-
trbution The writer shows that IN
Il der some conditions the smearing OF
loaves of bread may be very consid
I cradle, reaching, in the case Of UNI
d wrapped loaves kept under uncleanly
conditions hundreds of thousands OF
/ germs Out of a hundred loaves pur
chased from as many different shops
. in the city of Chicago. IA per cent
> were each coated with more than
: ten thousand bacteria. AS might be
expected, loaves obtained from clear
: shops, where all the surroundings are
favorable, have not nearly SO many
germs clinging to them as those kept
under generally dirty conditions. The
Indifference between the bacterial coat
: ing of wrapped and unwrapped bread
is particularly suggestive. In no case
: did the bacterial contamination oil
I wrapped bread reach a high figure
;. On the other hand. more than half oil
i the unwrapped loaves (62 per cent?
$ were coated with ever a thousand BAG
: terra Eleven wrapped loaves obtain
:. ed from clean shops bore on the aver
: age only 81 bacteria each.
It is said to be difficult to obtain a
$. sale for wrapped loaves in certain city
:, districts where the prospective pur
J chasers insist on testing the quality
I of the bread by pinching the loaf with
i thumb and finger! Unpleasant pos
e sibilities are suggested by such facts
, liza it not worth while ITO take some