Something About Water.

Otago Witness, Issue 2506, 2 April 1902, Page 65

Something About Water.

Water may be classed among " the nccess;uies of life," and it should head the li*t, for it is the most necessary of all the foods and lanks next to air in the vi qency of the demand which our bodies nuke frr its supply. W< take water in all our foods as well as in all our drinks, for it is present in even the driest piece of bread we eat, and the strongest spirit the toper putto his lips consists of about. one.-Lalf water. The greater number of our ordinary foods contain a very large amount ; vegetables and fruits especially so. Still, we cannot get on veiy long without augmenting the ordinary contents of the food by ; fluid supply," and it is this we puipose considering more particularly. As it falls from the clouds in the i-luipe of rain it is very pure, for it is the resu't of a natural process of distillation. On a huge scale it is made, but, nevertheless it is distilled water, tuid is like it,

" soft '" It differs from distilled v.atsr iv one particuki at \**j&

for in falling through the atmosphere it dissolves a certain amount of air, whereas the product of our stills, if we except the first few drops distilled, contains none at all, for it has been made out of contact with the air. As a drinking water the rain will be better than distilled water, for it will have some of that little shaipness which air gives to water. Apart from this, however, it is not quite so good as it is likely to become as it filters through the earth to the spring or finds its way down the rivulet and the stream to the sea, for in this process it dissolves a certain amount of solid matter, which makes it more palatable, and it may be more wholesome. It has been alleged that pure distilled water does haim to the stomach, because it acts on the surface by a process known to science as *" osmosis," but we cannot do more than mention the opinion here. Besides the solid contents, it dissolves more air, and this helps the dissolved solids to give the water the flavour we associate with fresh water. It is apt also to dissolve the products of fermentations which are going on constantly in the soil and ditches. These are not likely to improve the flavour of the water, and we associate them in our mind with the fermentation and putrefaction from the waste and excretory products of animals, and especially men. The aversion to the products is good in so far that these very products are apt to be associated with disease, and not a few infectious maladies are communicated from one person to another by means of the water, and the instinctive aversion to them appears to be in the direction of protection.

In England the towns are supplied with water collected from the hills, where there is little or no risk of pollution with sewage, and when there are habitations in the collecting area the water authority makes a point of treating the sewage in a special manner, so that it cannot contaminate the supply. They neaily all detain the water in large reservoirs, so that the evil product may be deposited if it has gained entrance. The process has been studied with regard to the water supply of London more particularly, and it is found that, with sufficient time to rest in the reservoirs, the number of bacteria diminish very materially. What is specially feared is that enteric fever may be spread by water, for there is no doubt that this has taken place even here, and Ladysmith during the siege was a striking instance of enteric spieading by means of a water supply. To cause enteric, it is necessary that the baci'li which produce it should be taken into the stomach, and this can only occur from contaminated water, when the deject?, of an enteric case has been deposited in the collection area of the water supply. This is, of course, much more apt to happen in the country, where the water is collected in close proximity to houses, and where the means of treatment of the dejecta of such a case is defective. With such a water supply, however, there is always risk, for a person may suffer from enteric and go about his usual avocations ; and in such a case, unless the closet is impervious, as it frequently is not, the rain will wash this infective material into the domestic water supply, and into the precious well from which the water is taken to cleanse the vessels in use for food.

The only safe way with such water supply is to have it boiled. Filters of the most up-to-date kind do act, but they are apt to go wrong in unskilled hands, and it is wiser to drink tea, or coffee, or cocoa, which require boiling to make them. In this way you may live in an out-of-the-way and insanitary place without the fear of an untimely end from enteric fevjer. — Home paper.