THE COMPARATIVE COST OF HOMEMADE AND BAKER'S

BREAD

ANNABELLE MARSH

Sent in response to the article "Made at Home" by Miss Anna Barrows, published in the February (1915) Journal.

The grocer delivered at the door a loaf of bread weighing 24 ounces for which I paid 10 cents.

The question came up whether I could make bread of as good or better quality for less money, including materials, time and fuel in the cost.

Using measuring cups, bread mixer, scales and clock for equipment, I experimented. The table below gives the result.

In the first place, instead of making one loaf I made three, not too many for a family of six such as mine to use, and so saved time and fuel. The same amount of coal that would have been used for one loaf baked three loaves. The time required for making three loaves at once was less than would be needed in making one at three different times. The method used was the straight dough method. The bread was mixed and kneaded, allowed to rise over night, then put into tins, and when light, baked. The entire bread was weighed after cooling. In calculating the cost of materials, the proportion was used which would produce exactly the weight of the baker's bread. The same ratio was used for fuel and time.

The time given included the manipulation of the bread and washing the bread mixer. The calculation of its value in money was based on actual wages received by a woman doing housework at $25 a month, working ten hours a day.

The fuel used was coal. The fire was kept burning continually. The amount weighed and calculated was the extra coal required for heating the oven above what would have been used if the fire had been kept in check.

The quality of the homemade was equal to the baker's, but slightly more tender.

BACTERIA IN THE AIR

To the air has long been attributed a subtle potency to incite disease when suitable conditions prevail. One need not go back far in history to reach the days when "night-air" and "sewer-air" were feared as the bearers of indefinable dangers to health. The discovery of the rôle of micro-organisms in the transmission of disease has largely changed this attitude. It is true that air from certain localities, such as soils or sewers, may contain an admixture of gaseous impurities-carbon monoxid and dioxid, marsh gas and hydrogen sulphid-which are not wholesome to man. But these admixtures are, in all except the most unusual circumstances, so small in amount as to have little if any harmful significance for health. The organic or solid impurities of the air give more cause for alarm, for they include the living bacteria. In sewer-air the proportion of micro-organisms is usually less than [in the air] of streets and houses, and the species are usually harmless. The movement of air in sewers is rather slow, so that abundant opportunity is afforded for the suspended particles, including örganisms as well as minute particles of earth and other things which make up 'dust,"] to become deposited on the moist surfaces.

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There is a growing conviction that in the majority of cases of so-called "air-borne" disease it is not the particulate constituents of the atmosphere that are directly responsible for the transmission of disease. Suspended particles, including bacteria, may, of course, be sprayed

about by the acts of coughing and sneezing and thus aid in the dissemination of diseases, particularly those of the respiratory tract. But as a rule it appears that the diseases conveyed through the air are carried through the agency of insects acting as vectors or as hosts for the infective parasites. In many hospitals, therefore, the "air-borne" diseases are now treated side by side in the same ward without fear of greater transmission than if they were isolated in separate wards. Attention is centered on the possibility of the carrier agency, animate or inanimate, rather than on the atmosphere as such. As a recent speaker expressed a phase of it, the problem is one of wire screens more than of ventilation. Yet a recent systematic study by the New York State Commission on Ventilation showed clearly that the air of occupied spaces such as factories, schools and offices contains more bacteria than that of open spaces in the city or country. It is significant that the increase in streptococci manifests itself promptly in the occupied spaces. Whereas in country or city air there are rarely more than ten of this group of micro-organisms per hundred cubic feet of air, the number may rise to more than forty in factories.

While there is a rapidly growing tendency, supported by much convincing evidence, to teach that ventilation has nothing whatever to do with either the transmission of the so-called "air-borne" diseases or the lessening of their transmission and the opinion is freely expressed that transmission by way of the air is of infinitely less importance than transmission by inanimate and animate carriers that have been in intimate contact with patients, yet the indisputable facts just cited regarding the comparative distribution of certain objectionable bacteria in occupied spaces still deserve respectful consideration in relation to the problems of public health.-The Journal of the American Medical Association.

EDITORIALS

The Journal. The success of the 1915 venture of issuing the JOURNAL ten times a year has made it seem possible to go a step further. We are glad to announce that the JOURNAL will be issued every month during 1916.

Home Economics and Business. In business the methods which survive are those which have been found to justify themselves. The fact, therefore, that railways are expending increasingly large sums of money in extension teaching in Home Economics is evidence that they find it profitable. Such teaching in agriculture has long been recognized as a means of promoting the prosperity of railways by developing the farming districts through which they pass. Home Economics was looked upon at first as more experimental, but the fact that it is now almost always found side by side with agriculture in this as in other kinds of teaching, indicates that better homes, like better crops, are considered necessary to prosperity.

An instance of the attention now given to home matters in such "business" extension work, if one may so term it, is found in the work recently carried on in the Southern States, and noted in our news items on another page.

Two Articles. We wish to call attention to two articles in this number, that by Miss Vivian, with its introduction by Professor Cole, and the one so generously contributed by Miss Lathrop.

Miss Vivian's, although technical, is worth study by all who have to deal with a budget in any form. Professor Cole's note in regard to the interpretation of statistics should also be noted, for wrong conclusions based on false interpretation of statistics is one of the many ways in which figures may lie.

Miss Lathop's paper suggests some new work for the Home Economics Association. Some college authorities who have opposed the introduction of Home Economics into the undergraduate course have approved of it as graduate work, since it is professional. If an important

function of the college is "to develop in the student the scholarly method of work," "to point out problems which need investigation" and to "give to the student the scholar's necessary working equipment;" if education is to be made "the interpretation of present civilization and conditions of life," then why should not many of our graduate students, under competent direction, undertake such work as Miss Lathop has suggested, and why should not this association urge such an opportunity upon our women's colleges?

COMMENT AND DISCUSSION

The Journal of the American Medical Association of November 20 under the heading Asepsis and the Dish Towel quotes from the JOURNAL OF HOME ECONOMICS and adds:

Among the low-priced restaurants and lunch rooms which are numbered by hundreds in our large cities, there is one (it is but a type-there are dozens like it) whose exterior of white brick and plate glass is as sparkling and bright as a newly frosted cake. Within, an expanse of white enamel, resplendent metal and spotless linen proclaim a devotion to cleanliness rivaled only by the surgical ward in a hospital. The waitresses are as neat and trim as uniformed nurses. In this stainless temple of alimentation one of the immaculate priestesses has been seen to pick up a glass just used by a departing guest, polish it with the dish towel at her belt, and calmly replace it on the table to be used by the next patron! One might instance even more horrifying infringements on prandial decency in more pretentious establishments; one might expatiate on the possible dangers of infection from such practices. The establishments do not lose custom thereby, probably because the public, while vaguely impressed with the beautiful ideal of asepsis or perfect cleanliness, has a pathetically inadequate idea of what it means. It is therefore encouraging to read the article under the heading "The Mischievous Wiping Cloth," in the November issue of the JOURNAL OF HOME ECONOMICS.

Perhaps, if such ideas as these are becoming current, we may hope for the day when Bridget will invariably sterilize her dish cloth and scorn the dish towel for her aseptic dishes, while "neat-handed Phillis" will always complete her coiffure beyond all revision before coming to serve our food. At any rate, one may always hope.