Vol. XVIII.

No. I.

SOME of the members of this Club seem to think it matters not what they eat, or what they drink, or what their other habits of life are; that as long as they think they are well and strong they will remain so. If this is the case, I do not see why they should join or attend the meetings of a Club whose object is the study of health and longevity.

I do not question the fact that there is much truth in the saying that “As a man thinketh, so is he," but the thinking is not all. If you take poison into your stomach thinking it will not harm you, you had better have a doctor near with an antidote or stomach pump. Or, if you intend drinking water contaminated with the germs of typhoid fever, you should make your will and prepare for the happy hereafter.

While the subject of this paper is Water, I do not wish to convey the impression by what I may say of its importance for health and longevity, that I think water and its right use is the only thing that will aid us in attaining a long, useful and happy life. There are many other things of great importance, but the proper use of pure water is perhaps the most important of all.

The question of food, involving the kind, quality, quantity, mode of preparation, time and manner of eating, mental and physical conditions attending digestion &c., is very closely related to and intertwined with that

*Read before the 100 Year Club at Hotel Majestic, 72d St. and Central Park West, Nov. 26, 1901.

of drink. So, also, is pure air. The three, water, solid food and air, are all foods which help to build up and keep the tissues of the body in repair, and are all absolutely necessary to sustain life. One can live but a few minutes without air, only a few days without water in some form, but men have lived many weeks without food other than air and water. Then there are the other essentials of exercise, rest and sleep, mental and moral conditions, &c.

I wish to say here that I regard long life as desirable only in proportion to the perfection, development and happiness attained by, and the usefulness of, that life. To simply exist for a great number of years, a burden to yourself and friends, as is too often the case, is both undesirable and unneces

sary.

The general use of water as related to health, happiness and longevity, is too extensive a subject for one short paper, and I shall confine myself mainly to its use within the body.

INTERNAL CLEANLINESS.

Cleanliness of the surface of the body, of the skin, is rightly regarded by thinking people as necessary and very desirable for health and comfort. If this is true, and

nearly every one admits its truth while comparatively few practise it to the most desirable extent, hoy much more important is it to keep the interior of the body, the meat

within the shell; the bones that support and sustain; the muscles which move and give flexibility, grace and strength, constituting as they do, about three-fourths of the body; the brain and nervous system which control and direct all; the vital organs, and the organs of digestion, assimilation, secretion and excretion; and especially the blood which nourishes and strengthens all; how much more important, I repeat, to keep all these pure, clean and in perfect working condition. Pure Water, and plenty of it does this, and it can be done in no other way.

Important as is the external bath in promoting the cleanliness and healthful action. of the skin, it has much less influence upon health and longevity than this daily bathing of all the blood and tissues of the body in pure water. When I say pure water I mean that which is absolutely free from all animal, vegetable and mineral substances whatever.

The proper performance of every function of the body, digestion and assimilation of food, the circulation of the blood, the processes of secretion and excretion, and the regulation of the temperature of the body, in fact every vital action is dependent upon the quantity and quality of the water which is daily taken into the system. If water in insufficient quantity, or of impure quality is used, every organ is impeded in its action, and every function disturbed, the free circulation of the blood through the microscopic capillary tubes of the entire system, one of the most important of life's processes, is seriously interefered with, depuration through the various organs and channels of excretion is retarded and consequently a slow but certain poisoning of the system takes place.

Water constitutes nearly three-fourths of the body. This fact alone shows its great importance. The blood is about 80 per cent. water, the muscles 75 per cent., the brain nearly 80 per cent., the gastric juice 971⁄2 per cent., the saliva 991⁄2 per cent, and even the bones contain 13 per cent. and the teeth 10 per cent of water.

Water is continually pasing from the body, and always carries with it more or less of the waste, worn out and poisonous materials constantly being generated within the system, as well as the injurious substances introduced from without. Every expired breath is loaded with watery vapor filled with these impurities. They are constantly being thrown out through the millions of little sewers, the perspiratory ducts of the skin, in the form of insensible perspiration. So also, with the kidneys and other channels of elimination, and water is always the vehicle by the aid of which they are disposed of. If they were not thrown out of the body they would soon clog the wheels of life and produce disease and death, as they are doing all over the world.

We will use a sponge as an illustration of this cleansing and purifying process. If the sponge is badly soiled, the first time water is squeezed through it will come out dark and muddy, the second time less so, the third time less still, until at length the water has done its work and issues forth as pure as when it entered. So with the body. It is filled with impurities, and, unlike the sponge, they are constantly being added to by the worn out particles of the system which are of no further use, but must be disposed of to make room for new ones capable of furnishing renewed life and vital force. Water is the only medium capable of absorbing and carrying these impurities out of the body without injuring or destroying it. The larger the quantities of water squeezed through the sponge the quicker and more effectively it will be cleansed. It is the same with the body, the more water drank the quicker and more perfectly it will be purified. And again, the purer the water which is used the sooner and better will the cleansing be accomplished. Any housewife knows that if she uses clean water to wash and rinse her dishes and clothes the work will be better done and the articles washed be purer, whiter and sweeter than if soiled water were used, yet how few realize the vastly greater importance of using the purest water to wash and keep pure and

sweet the caskets which contain their immortal souls.

QUANTITY OF WATER REQUIRED.

The best authorities agree that under ordinary conditions, at least two quarts of water per day should be drank by the average individual. Laborers and others exposed to a high degree of heat, who perspire freely, require a much larger quantity. I have known men to drink from two to three quarts of water in the hot rooms of a Turkish bath within an hour, and at the end of the bath their weight was less than at the beginning, showing that they had lost through perspiration more than they had drunk.

Care should be observed not to drink so much water at a time as to burden the stomach, nor to take it so cold as to chill it. Where the stomach is weak, and in some other conditions, warm or hot water should be used. Large quantities drank at meals or soon after interfere with digestion. Most of the water should be taken from half an hour to an hour before meals. Ice water should not be drunk as a beverage.

In all kinds of fevers and inflammations, defective nutrition, inactivity of the liver or skin, diseases of the kidneys, constipation, rheumatism, gout and all the various diseased conditions caused by uric acid poisoning, the drinking of still larger quantities of pure water is highly beneficial.

Dr. John T. Nutt in a recent publication says: "Very few Americans drink enough water. Eight or ten glasses of water should be taken daily by the average person."

Gould & Pyle's Cyclopædia of Medicine and Surgery says:

"At the present day the subject of drinking water involves the interest, attention and welfare of every civilized community. The question of health largely depends upon the water consumed, in which may reside the micro-organisms of disease and death."

Prof. George B. Fowler, M.D., of the New York Post Graduate Medical School, says:

"I venture the statement that the cause of one-fourth the cases of disordered digestion in fashionable life is the lack of sufficient water in the dietary."

Prof. George Henry Fox, M.D., of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, says: "It is quite certain that few people drink too much water, and I feel sure that many unpleasant feelings and symptoms of actual disease would quickly disappear if the sufferers only appreciated the value of this best and cheapest of all remedies. The interior of the body needs cleansing as much as the exterior, and a liberal supply of pure water in the treatment of our patients will often bring about the desirable results which drugs have failed to accomplish."

Madame Patti, the famous singer, who at the age of 60 is as perfect a specimen of womanhood both in appearance and reality as she was at 30, in telling how to retain youth and beauty, said:

"Drink nothing but water or milk-especially drink water-you can't drink too much of it."

In speaking of uric acid causing rheumatism, gout, biliousness, constipation, slow digestion, inactivity of mind, &c., Prof. Wm. G. Thompson, M.D., of the University of the City of New York, says:

"Water itself, if taken in sufficient quantities, by increasing the fluidity and consequently the solvent powers of the blood, is often an effective remedy in these cases."

To dilute the blood when it becomes thickened and as a consequence circulates with difficulty, water is a quick and the only effective remedy.

IMPORTANCE OF PURE WATER.

Having considered the absolute necessity for water, some of its various internal uses and the quantity required, we now come to the vitally important question of its purity or impurity.

As a rule in Nature, like produces like. Pure food and drink, under favorable conditions, insures purity and health of body, and other things being equal-purity and