TOO MUCH WATER

Evening Star, Issue 19634, 13 August 1927, Page 21

TOO MUCH WATER

Commenting on the case of a Bristol (England) man with an inordinate craving for milk who was sent to prison for stealing bottles of milk left in doorways, "a physician said that it might "be an example of the condition known as polydipsia. He added: — “ There are many extraordinary cases of excessive thirst on record. A woman has been known to drink two gallons of tea per day. Water the usual beverage in these cases. There is on record in medical literature the case of a Frenchwoman who drank twelve pailfuls of water daily. The water cost twelve sous per pail, and when the woman married a tailor his earnings did not suffice to supply her with water. In another case a young man drank twelve gallons of water per day, and always placed a tubful of it at his bedside for the night’s consumption. Glassblowers arc said to drink as much as sixty pints of water in a day. Then there are cases in which the victims drink inordinate quantities of beer. One Frenchman lias been known to drink two ’and a-half pints of brandy a day, and another twenty quarts of wine. In the Bristol case it is possible that it is a stealing rather than a drinking idiosyncrasy; men arc known who invariably steal articles of the same kind, such as ladders, doormats, and other things of little value to them.”