THE BEST Waters to Drink. EPHRAIM CUTTER, M.D., LL.D. NEW YORK: EQUITABLE BUILDING 120 BROADWAY. 1896. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, COPYRIGHT, 1896 The Best Waters to Drink. PRELUDE. THE ground is here taken that water is man's best drink, because, (a) It is the natural liquid for drinks. (b') The human body is three- fourths water. (r) Because water enters into all drinks used as liquid foods and all intoxicating liquors. (<Z) It thins the blood and dissolves out the abnormal gravels found in the system. (<?) Its office is to keep these salts in solution so that they will not be thrown down as gravel, in granular, massive, or crystalline form. (/) Water is for washing out the alimentary canal, liver, kidneys, skin, and lungs. (£■) When drank it promotes peristalsis down- ward, thus causing no pathological delays of undigested food, to ferment and paralyze parts near and remote by the gases of fermentation. (A) Water in proper quantities and tempera- ture can be drank daily with no harm; on the contrary, with the direct promotion of health. (/) Water never clogs the parts like distilled and undistilled alcoholic liquors. (/') Water enters into the composition of nearly every form, element, and tissue of the human body. (£) Deprive mankind of water in all forms, and death results accompanied by agonizing torments, as seen in waterless travelers on the Sahara Desert. z/) Water is a food, as explained by para- graph (/). 2 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. (w) Water moistens, relaxes, tones, and makes useful all the body; only dry or de- prive the body-tissues of water, and this is proved. («) Deprive the blood of water, and it would not flow; the saliva, and the mouth would be parched; the milk, and there would be no milk. Without water there is not stomachic collateral digestive circulation,-no bile, no urine, no faeces, no form of muscular loco- motion, no tears, no joint-juice, no chyle, no chyme, no central spinal fluid, no sweat; nor would there be any gin, rum, cider, beer, brandy, wine, porter, etc., as all these contain more or less water. Few if any have seen alcohol of 100-per-cent. purity. Even the air we breathe, and whence we are called animals, contains a large amount of water, and, on the other hand, water to be palatable must contain air. Airless water means death to fishes. These considerations, though exceedingly trite, are enough to show the vital need of man for water, and that man cannot exist without water. The question is: What form of water is best for mankind ? This question has been studied for a long time. Among no writers will be found recommendations of impure water, as of ponds and ditches loaded with animal or vegetable life, as if a zoological or botanical garden; of saline waters like the ocean, unless as medicines; nor of waters putrid with human or other animal excrement, or putrid with animals dead and decomposing; nor waters from the slums of pest-houses, tan- ners' rendering establishments, etc.; but our common sense teaches that the best waters are the purest waters, or vice versa. THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. 3 For example, we enumerate :- 1. Well-waters with no sewage-drainage con- tamination-good. 2. Spring-waters away from man-better. 3. Aerated distilled waters-best. Let us take them in reversed order:- 3 BEST. AERATED DISTILLED WATER. By this is meant not the ordinary distilled water of the laboratory, as the tube of the still enters the flask, and the water is condensed away from the open air; such is tasteless if not bitter with empyreumatic odors. But we mean water distilled when the distillate drips at least three inches in the outside air, in a spheroidal condition. By experiments this distance of aerial transit is found to give the flavor and at- tractiveness of spring-water. Of potable waters, distilled water is probably in the largest quan- tity. Consider that the oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, the foliage of all plants, and the sur- faces of all terrestrial objects are continuously vaporizing water, even at temperatures below o° F; how this enormous cosmic evaporation of water forms insensible watery vapors, dew, fogs, mist, rain, snow, and hail in the air; that the source of all our collections of water is from water distilled into the air as above in- dicated ; that spring-water is really distilled water mixed with the matters it has dissolved out of the earth, salts, gases. Rain-water is distilled water freed from organic and inorganic matters save those en- countered or washed out of the atmosphere and collected on the water-shed, as smoke on roofs. Were it not that air is a huge vehicle for the 4 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. carriage of many substances, rain-water would be the most desirable water. Indeed, many people prefer and use it, as it is, for one thing, freed from the unhealthy albuminous, mineral, and organic matters which impregnate well- waters among the abodes of man. Artificially-distilled waters have long stood at the very fore-front of potable waters, and correctly, as follows (repetition is unavoid- able) :- 1. Because it is the purest form of water obtainable; it is not perfectly pure, as shown by this incident: Some years ago I was fur- nished with a few bottles of thrice distilled water from the United States Naval Labora- tory ; although kept corked for use in micro- scopy, this thrice-distilled water was seen after awhile to contain mycelia of fungi so as to be visible to the naked eye. Probably the bac- teria of these fungi filtered in from the atmosphere. 2. Because distilled water has no salts. The ocean has become salt because of the salts left during ages by evaporating the rain, snow, etc. The following diseases are forms of gravel:- (a) Calculi in the kidneys, gall and urinary bladders, nares, and under the tongue. (fi) Asthma, gravel of the lungs. (c) Rheumatism, gravel of the blood. (</) Atheroma, gravel of the arteries. (<f) Stony hearts are calculous. (/) Gout is a urate-of-soda gravel. (g) Some intestinal solid concretions are col- lections of gravel. These are found in faeces and nearly all the urinary crystalline deposits. Fatty ills (degeneration) are accompanied with gravelly deposits generally as a cause. When THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. 5 it is considered that in such diseases the great thing to be done is to dissolve away this gravelly deposit and quicken the circulation in the capillaries, it is clear that the thinnest (most attenuated as the ancients called it) water will dissolve away the most gravel and thin the blood so that it will flow better in the capillaries, and hence is par excellence the remedy. This is American doctrine appropriated by the French (according to Dr. R. H. Sayre). So that, if sufferers desire to get well enough to do the right thing, they had better drink that liquid which, the moment it enters the system, will dissolve better than any other liquid the salts it encounters, on exactly the same principle as when one wishes to rid a vessel of salts that are crystallized into it he pours in water that has no salts, well knowing the futility of trying to dissolve salts with waters already saturated with salts ! To illus- trate this, a patient of my son, Dr. John A. Cutter, was voiding renal calculi. To relieve this he had, unknown to my son, been drink- ing a spring-water containing half an ounce of salts to the gallon; his case was reported in the circular of this spring-water company as one of its marvelous cures, when, on the con- trary, it was only making him void more cal- culi ; and very naturally, because he was piling in on his already saturated system more salts at the rate of half an ounce to the gallon ! The idea in this case was carried out to introduce distilled saltless water, with the result of stop- ping the output of calculi and relief. (N. B.: This case had albuminuria, alternating casts, and fatty epithelia; aged 60 years; a poli- 6 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. tician; had been a heavy drinker; abdomen enormous; was fed for nearly two years on roast and broiled beef, lamb, or mutton, with one vegetable; much variation from this diet or any lapses into drink would bring on the renal calculi and passage of blood and gravel. He is now in robust health, with urine usually normal; dietary greater, but animal food the main-stay. This is only a part of the clinical evidence that the essence of Bright's disease is not the feeding of nitrogen in excess, but a fatty degeneration of tissues due to partial pa- ralysis from gases of fermentation; but this is "another story.") 2. BETTER. SPRING-WATERS AWAY FROM MAN. While this is said of distilled waters, it is also true that there are natural waters with an insignificant amount of saline matter,-say, anything less than ten grains to the gallon,- which also are free from the zoological and botanical gardens referred to, and uncontami- nated by human defilement, which answer next to distilled waters, and which can be furnished more cheaply, as there is no cost of fuel. Among them is the famous Great Bear Spring water, which I have carefully studied and find to be free from the organic life found in the ordinary hydrant-waters of towns or cities, or in the waters of wells as far as I have gone, and which, from the insignificant amount of salts contained, proves to be a wholesome, healthy, natural drink to be used in cooking, on the table, or other domestic and social uses. Still - i. e., Non ■ Gaseous - Waters. - In Apollinaris, Seltzer, Hygeia, etc. (sparkling THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. 7 waters), carbonic-acid gas is in excess. If some one could get up a water sparkling from oxygen, it would be a great thing. There are objections to carbonic-acid gas used all the time; it is a poison, when breathed, and in large excess in the alimentary canal. The bane of my life professionally is carbonic acid gas in the alimentary canal; and this, too, in a person who drinks no sparkling waters, but in whom the carbonic acid is formed by the alcoholic fermentation,-/.<?., alcohol, carbonic acid,-and, if prolonged, vinegary fermenta- tion. This carbonic-acid gas in excess and long- continued causes: i. A partial paralysis of parts near and remote. 2. A dilatation-espe- cially if weakened by any cause-of the alimentary canal, and, as time and the cause go on acting, a fibroid thickening of the walls of said canal. I have seen a stomach thus dilated to one-half the size of the abdomen. 3. The partial paralysis near and remote impedes circulation, secretion, and function, so that (4) there may happen fatty degenera- tion and colloid catarrh. 5. Cases have been observed where the paralysis of the lower half of the body occurred under these circum- stances. Now, is it wise to promote lesions occurring from carbonic acid in excess by pouring more carbonic acid into the alimentary canal by means of drinks heavily charged with carbonic- acid gas? If a splinter hurts, does a surgeon cure by putting another splinter in by its side? No. The way to relieve carbonic-acid ills is by stopping off its use. Hence the writer would use all his powers, medical, official, and clinical, to prevent the use of carbonic-acid 8 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. gas in foods and drinks, when the alimentary canal is loaded with said gas already, assuming that it is a criminal error to pile mischief on mischief when mischief should be taken away to preserve the health. He advises then, with all his influence, the use of still-distilled or sparsely-salt spring-waters in preference to the sparkling waters whose effervescence pleases the eye and seems to confer a dignity on the drinkers at public dinners and on ocean steam ships. He is the more earnest in this because he believes that many sudden deaths are caused by the stomach being filled with carbonic-acid gas. The latter osmoses through the stomach- walls and pericardial sac, and directly par- alyzes the heart and stops its beats,-one of the most important American medical ideas of the age. Not long ago I was at a club dinner in New York; a physician sitting near drank largely of carbonic-acid drinks and ate heartily of carbonic acid-producing foods. The next morning this physician was found dead in his bed. Death, in the writer's opinion, was probably due to the excess of carbonic-acid gas taken into the system, and which usually manifests its action at about 3 a.m. because it accumulates and distends the most at this hour. Again, in cases of heartache, palpitation com- bined with fear of impending death, unable to gulp up wind for relief; after the eructation the pressure and paralysis is diminished, and the heart, almost overwhelmed, is freed to do its work. Never forget that hot still-water, impregnated or not with herbs, is one of the best means to cause contractions of an over- distended stomach or bowels; the main virtue THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK of the ptisans of the French is the hot water in them. The old-fashioned emetic is also of value in this condition. Lately I have had the history of a woman falling dead suddenly after taking a purgative powder which freed carbonic gas in her stomach ; any one who has had any experience treating horses sick with colic, and his seen how suddenly they die from the gas- pressure, although in their case there may be also sulphydric-acid gas, will appreciate the toughness of man in fighting intestinal fermen- tative gases as long as he dees. All these go to show the superiority of gasless water to the sparkling. Verbum sapientis. 9 I. GOOD. WELL-WATER. By this is meant water obtained by sinking shafts into the earth, either by driving tubes or by excavations down to the water-line below. It is an Anglo-Saxon word, and formerly meant spring water, which now is usually located away from town. There is one large flowing spring at Plymouth, Mass., that courses through the street, but its water is impregnated with organic matter and does not bear out its repu- tation. A well, as now understood, is a col- lection of water obtained as above, usually closed by a wooden or stone platform and located in the midst of houses or barns, where its water is more or less impregnated with organic and inorganic impurities as it soaks through from the water-shed. These impurities are more of a chemical than biological character. There may be an excess of salts to help form gravels in the body; albuminoid nitrates to contaminate the viscera; while bacteria and their parent mycelia, commonly called fungi, 10 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. sometimes flourish and may give rise to typhoid fever and diphtheria. Those who use wells should look " well " to them. If they live in the Bay or Buckeye States, they can consult their boards of health as to the potability of their waters, and get authoritative answers (I do not know how many other State boards do like service to their communities). While it may be said that people who use water from a well sunk beside a privy-vault have lived to a good old age, it must be added that they have so lived in spite of and not on account of it; it is a fortunate circumstance that it is so in their cases, but no thoughtful persons would drink any but the purest waters. The misfortune of wells is that they have not the purifying influences of sunlight, air, and healthy vegetations. There is no doubt that most of the forms of animal and vegetable life found in hydrant- waters are there for purification, and that their taking into the system when both are normal is not hurtful; as, for example, we eat celery harmlessly, but decaying celery we do not eat. The sponges and pelomyxas found in abun- dance in our hydrant-waters no doubt purify the water and are harmless, but when they die and rot they may be harmful as food. Cu- riously the protoplasm of these bodies when dead will go through all filters, as they are soluble in water. Not all bacteria are harmful in well-water, but some are, and it is difficult to detect them. We may use the Irishman's way to detect edible fungi, who said, "If ye ate one o'em and it kills you, it is a toad stool, but if not it is a THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK 11 mushroom," though we are sure it is bad for the experimenters. Still, if one has to use well-water and has ailments which do not yield to ordinary measures, it would be wise to re- sort to the use of distilled or natural spring- water for a test. Boiling is even a good pre- caution, as 2i2° F. coagulate the albumin of all kinds in germs, eggs, or animals, and ren- der nocent ones innocent. In proof of this it may be said that the Hon. S. K. Takahashi, late Consul-General of Japan in America, told the writer that "he had noted in Tokio that •when thousands of the Japanese died of cholera, none in the Chinese quarter died of it. Mr. Takahashi attributed this immunity to the fact that the Chinese drank only boiled water." Postscript.-Those who would test this water have only to make a cotton-cloth bag, four by two inches, and tie it to a faucet. Let the water run and watch the bag; if it is an average case, the bag will become distended and brown like a sausage in the course of ten or twenty minutes, according to the size of the faucet and water-pressure; the water should then be shut off and the bag removed; next pour contents into a goblet and turn bag in- side out by degrees and wash the everted sur- faces in the goblet. It will help to blow in the everted bag and, while distended by the air- pressure, to sop the everted surfaces more; close the process by twisting the bag tightly longitudinally. A glance with the naked eye is enough to satisfy the most skeptical of the pres- ence of organic and other matters in the filtrate. If you have a microscope, generally you will HYDRANT-WATER. 12 THE BEST WATERS TO DRINK. find the zoological and botanical garden alluded to. In such a case sparsely-salt spring or distilled waters are to be commended. While there is so much pains taken to procure good alcoholic liquors, there is more reason in pro- curing good aqueous liquors. Hence, if at a banquet you demand your particular brand of wine, gin, champagne, etc., why should not I ask for my spring or distilled water ? And as at almost every city street-corner there are saloons for the sale of fermented and distilled alcoholic liquors, why should there not be places for the sale of the salubrious, healthful, disease-protective, gravel-dissolving, blood- thinning, refreshing, detergent, appetizing, life giving distilled or natural spring-waters with little salines? If, as it looks to a superficial observer in any modern city, the chief end of man is " drink," yiivy not furnish, as the outcome of the best civilization, the best drinks of all, which cheer but not inebriate ? Equitable Building, New York. From Medical Bulletin, Philadelphia, February, 1895.