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37
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1894.
Whitewash over brick or plaster is undesirable, as it soon gets dirty, has a rough
surface, and cannot be properly cleansed.
"The floor should be of good concrete. Its surface should be made smooth and
even with a layer of cement or with brick tiles, and there should be on no account a
gulley-opening or sink in the floor. Any drain-pipe passing beneath the floor should
be a foot or more below the concrete. The drain-pipes must be surrounded by at
least six inches of concrete and all the joints made gastight with Portland cement.
Better still, the pipes may be of iron, prepared by the Barff process or lined with
Angus Smith's solution ; such pipes should be laid on concrete and cemented at the
joints.
"The roof should be ceiled with plaster, or witli tongued match-boarding, or with
a smooth glazed material that can be periodically cleansed.
"All the rooms in our ideal bakehouse should be light, airy, and lofty. Natural
light should be obtained in the daytime from windows of good size reaching to
the ceiling, and having an area not less than one-tenth of the floor-space Artificial
light can be obtained from gas, preferably from incandescent lamps with ventilating
outlets, or, best of all, from electric lamps. Airiness is secured by a proper system of
ventilation. Where there is no ' cross ' ventilation—that is to say, where there is not
a through current of air between windows in opposite external walls—some of the
following means must be adopted. Inlets may be provided by the use of windows,
Tobin's tubes, perforated bricks, Sherringham valves, Mc Kinnell's roof-ventilators,
and other methods, but in all cases it is absolutely essential that they should be
beyond the control of the workmen. Outlets must be through exit tubes or exhaust
shafts, the draught of which may be created by waste heat from the furnace flue, by
gas-burners, by a steam jet, or by a mechanically driven fan. In dusty situations the
inlets may be furnished with filters of wire, gauze or other suitable material. Whatever
the scheme of ventilation, it must be so arranged that the air of the bakery is
renewed without draft at least three times in an hour. Loftiness is a point which must
be to some extent regulated by the special circumstances of the case. It may,
however, be stated generally, that in no case should the height between floor and
ceiling be less than eight feet in every part.
"The furnace, fire, and fuel should be outside the bakehouse, while the oven can
be easily arranged to open inside. This plan of construction could be adopted only in
in cases where there is a good system of ventilation. If found to be structurally
impossible, so that there is a inside fire, the oven damper should be so made that the
workman cannot cut off the whole of the flue, unless there be an alternative or
" sulphur " flue to carry off the pent-up furnace fumes. The object of this precaution
is to prevent the place being charged with poisonous products from the furnace when
the baker closes the damper in order to save fuel as soon as his oven is hot. It has
been remarked elsewhere that this effect may be rehearsed by any person curious on
this point if he gets up a good fire in his sitting-room grate and then suddenly blocks the
chimney by pulling down the register. In all cases coal and other fuel should be
stored away from the bakehouse.
"The water-supply should come from a tap connected directly with the rising
main, and should not be drawn from a cistern, as such receptacles are often dirty and
liable to pollution from sewer-gases. Filters are worse than useless.
"Flour should be kept in a cool, dry place, away from the bakehouse. All empty
sacks should be systematically cleansed, and not' be allowed to lie about in the
bakehouse.
"The dough-troughs should be of glazed iron, and movable. If made of wood,
the inner surface must be perfectly smooth and free from cracks, so as to prevent the
lodgment of dough and other putrescible matter. The best lining for a wooden trough
is one made of zinc.
" The loaves should be taken as soon as baked to a special bread or cooling room.