Wood, J. T.; Puering, bating and drenching of skins, Spon, London (1912)
URL (Internet Archive)
Table of contents:
1. Description of the puering and bating process
2. The chemistry of puering
3. The physics of bating
4. The bacteriology of the bate
5. Action of enzymes
6. Original papers on bating
7. Artificial bates
8. Patents
9. Drenching
From the Preface:
The present volume is the outcome of a desire to preserve the numerous notes which I have made during over twenty years' work at the practical and scientific study of bating. It has been my wish to complete the investigation of this important process in leather manufacture, for, as Lord Allerton has paradoxically remarked: "Good leather is made before the skins go into the tan liquor at all," but owing to circumstances having drawn me more and more to the commercial side of the business, I have been compelled to abandon this project.
When learning the trade as an apprentice every fault in the leather was attributed to this part of the work, and the troubles and miseries of the "puer shop" first caused me to take up the study of puering. I was determined to know the causes underlying the process. Puering is not only a filthy and disgusting operation, but is prejudicial to health, and in the nature of it is attended by more worry and trouble than all the rest of the processes in leather making put together.