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7?
DRAINAGE.
The drainage of premises used as bakehouses in this district may
be described as satisfactory.
Prior to 1904 several of the underground bakehouses were
subject to flooding from sewage when the sewers were surcharged.
I have on such occasions seen a batch of dough lying several inches
deep in sewage, while sacks of Hour standing on the Hoor have shared
a similar fate.
Before certifying such bakehouses, the Council had to be satisfied
that efficient means were taken to prevent a recurrence of such a
condition. The steps taken appear in all instances to have been
effective ; in fact, so successful have they been, that the system which
I recommended at the time has been extended to many other premises
similarly subject to flooding from sewage.
EFFECT UPON HEALTH.
It is not probable, from anything which inspection has revealed,
that any serious danger to the health of the consumer is incurred as a
consequence of the process of bread manufacture, or of the conditions
under which it is carried on.
For practical purposes, bread as it leaves the oven is a sterilised
product, and is not of a character likely either from its nature or its
risks of exposure to become the medium of distribution of any of the
pathogenic organisms ordinarily met with in this country.
But the sentiment which demands clean food is sound, and there
is good reason why, in eating bread, people should not consume dirt,
especially in quantities that rapidly attain to the proverbial peck.
It has to be admitted that the conditions under which bread is
habitually made fail to exclude even to a reasonable extent the admixture
of mechanical and chemical dirt from our loaves.