Chapter XV Water

Sunday, August 31, 2025 03:49PM

CHAPTER 15

WATER

Water is one of the most abundantly supplied elements of nature for remedial uses. The Blood and brain of the human body are composed of about four-fifths water. The fluid secretions and excretions are more than nine-tenths their weight in water.

The chemical composition of water is represented by the chemical formula, H2O, which means that it is composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, proportionately, two volumes of the former and one of the latter. Both are odorless, colorless, tasteless, and transparent, Oxygen is the greater supporter of combustion in life. Hydrogen is one of the lightest gases known.

Uses of water. Water exists in the form of ice when below 32 degrees F. When at 212 degrees F. or above, it is changed into vapor. Between 32 degrees F. and 212 degrees F. it is a liquid. Water possesses the greatest amount of heat required to elevate temperature to a given number of degrees, of any substance. Water also absorbs more heat by elevation than any other substance. When passing from the ice to the liquid state, it absorbs a great amount of heat from the objects it comes in contact with without any elevation of temperature. Water conducts heat much more readily than air, and communicates its heat to bodies with which it come in contact, but it also abstracts heat when at a lower temperature.

Rain water. Rain water comes the nearest to being pure water of any attainable. But it is unwholesome because it gathers many impurities as it falls. Filtered rain water and distilled water are the purest forms.

Hard water. When water is hard, it will not producer a lather with soap. The hardness is due to salts of lime, gypsum, and chalk, and others, which makes it unfit for use externally, and especially internally.

Mineral water. These waters contain solutions of salts of magnesia, iron and others, as well as iodine, arsenic, and sulphur, which give them a medicinal taste and they have been much used for cures of chronic ailments. These waters are absolutely unfit for drinking or cooking purposes. The contain no particular value for cleansing. One would naturally know that water which is unfit to cleanse the outside of the body, could not be of much benefit as an internal application.

With the exception of pure air, there is no other element of nature that is as important in sustaining life as pure water, or has as important a relation to the human system. A person can live longer on water alone than if deprived of it. A large proportion of our food, in variance to the type, contains from fifteen to ninety percent water.

Water undergoes no change in the body, but is absolutely essential to the performance of the vital functions, as it enables various organs to perform their work so that life is maintained. The circulatory system is one that is especially dependent upon water. Water is the solvent which floats the blood corpuscles, nutritive, and waste elements which the blood is carrying. By the aid of water, nutritions enter the blood and are conveyed to fibers of the intricate human mechanism, where repair and growth are needed.

There is no other element which is so adapted for this exact purpose as water. It circulates through the most delicate capillaries, without friction, and even passes through membranes into parts that are not accessible by openings.

Water is continually passing away from the body from some organ of elimination, either skin, kidneys, or lungs. If the kidneys become obstructed, we all know there is serious trouble. The dry air entering the lungs all the time absorbs moisture from the pulmonary membranes. Therefore it is necessary to supply the body with plenty of pure water at all times. The average person eliminates about five pints of water in twenty-four hours, and an equal new supply must be made in order to preserve the fluidity of the blood. People whose work is of laborious nature which necessitates profuse perspiration naturally require more water than others.

It will also be noticed that the diet has a great deal to do with the amount of water demanded by nature. People who eat largely of animal products, and use salt, pepper, spices and condiments, require considerably more water to dissolve and cleanse the system of these unhealthful things. People who use mostly fruit, vegetables, grains and avoid the use of stimulating foods and drinks, require less water, as a great many vegetables and fruits are composed of more than half water.

Water is the only substance which really quenches thirst. Other beverages quench thirst in proportion to the amount of water they contain, and are unwholesome to the extent of the injurious elements that are added.

The skin performs several important duties for the body, the most important being excretion. The fact would be easily demonstrated if a coat of paint or varnish were applied all over the body, for a person would die almost as quickly as if a dose of poison had been given. The millions of little sweat glands are actively and constantly engaged in separating from the blood impurities which if retained would cause disease and death.

The skin also is an organ of respiration. It absorbs oxygen, and exhales poisonous gases, although most of this work is done by the lungs. In some lower animals, all work of respiration is done by the skin. The skin not only absorbs oxygen but absorbs liquids to a great extent. If a person stays in a warm bath for some time the weight of the body may be considerably increased. Seamen, when deprived of fresh water, wet their clothing with the sea water and the skin absorbs the water part.

The skin helps greatly in the regulation of temperature. It is a non-conducting and dense, which pre4vents to a considerable degree the escape of necessary body heat. Then the body becomes over-heated from strenuous vital activities, fever, or external heat, the skin relieves the tissues by favoring escape of heat. This is exactly what happens in fever, when you give plenty of water, and bathe the outside of the skin, excite perspiration, etc. The moisture evaporates through the perspiratory glands out upon the surface. It is a powerful, cooling process.

The skin may also be called the organ of touch. It is the most extensive sensibility organ of the body, and is very closely connected with all the great nerve centers. That is why water treatments are so efficient and have such a good effect in nervous diseases.

Every opening of the body to the surface is in line with mucous membrane. Mucous membrane lines the air passages and lungs, also the urinal and genital organs, and the whole alimentary canal. The mucous membrane resembles the skin in structure, as it is made up of several layers like the skin. It also secretes and excretes. It excretes foul material (as the exudation in diphtheria) and secretes useful substances when in fluid state.

The importance of the skin as an eliminative organ is evident by the offensive odor of perspiration, which has the distinct odor of tobacco, if the person uses it in any form. This also proves that the skin not only eliminates, but eliminates poisons from the body as well. Every movement we make destroys a portion of the living tissues. When they are dead, they are poisonous and must be removed. Some of the poisons in the system are very deadly, such as poisons from the urine, bile ducts, gall bladder, etc. They must be eliminated quickly, and here the marvelous use of water is again exhibited. Pure water dissolves these poisons whenever it comes in contact with them and is brought by the current of circulation to the proper organs-liver, skin, kidneys, and lungs-and the poisons are expelled.

The skin has millions of pores from which flow constantly a stream of poisons from the disintegration of the body. As we perspire these poisons are left on the skin. As time passes, more and more are left there. If the skin is normally active, it would take three or four days for these poisons to form a layer, which could be compared to a thin coating of varnish. Unless the person bathes properly and often, they would continue to accumulate and increase until it would undergo a process of decomposition.

We all know that a person who does not bathe often has a very unpleasant and unpardonable odor about them, but this offense is not equal to the evil done to oneself. This accumulation obstructs the work of the millions of little pores, and some of the poisons are reabsorbed, thus poisoning the system. Frequent cleansing with water will keep the skin wholly free from poisons. It is easily understood why so many people have torpid skins, because it is not uncommon to find people who have never taken a real, general bath in their lives, and the most of them do not practice it enough. A cleansing bath every day is best, but at least three times a week. You wash your face and hands every day. Why not the entire body? A cleansing bath three times a week will keep the skin supple and clean. The bath should be as indispensable to a woman as the mirror. Many very refined and fastidious people who spend many hours in dressing, etc., and women in using creams, lotions, and make-up to beautify the portions of the skin exposed to view would be quite shocked to learn the true condition of the unwashed skin. We do not say that this is true of every one, but it is true of a great many.

Inactivity of the skin is one of the main causes of all skin disease, coupled with an aggravated condition caused by wrong dietetic habits. The relation between the skin and kidneys is very close, and inactivity of the skin is very often caused by kidney disorders, nervous disorders, rheumatism, gout, and dyspepsia. It is a common cause of lung affection.

The value of water as a preventive of disease was recognized by ancient peoples. And baths were used to a far greater extent than in modern times. Moses, who was the great Hebrew lawwgiver, commanded his people to be scrupulously clean, and made bathing a part of their religious duties. His example was followed by Mohammed, who required his people to bathe before each of the five daily prayers. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

The Greeks regarded the bath as a very essential means of securing physical health. Daily baths were practiced by them, from the youngest to the oldest. The Romans made a luxury of the bath.

The most renowned physicians from Hippocrates down to Galen, Selus, Boerhaave, and also others such as Sebastian Knieppe, Melville C. Keith, and many more agree that bathing is an invaluable means of pre4serving health. Nevertheless, as people have become more enlightened and more civilized, bathing has been more and more disregarded. During the dark ages in Europe, the bath was unknown, to which fact Michelet, a noteworthy historian, tells us that, in his opinion, accounted for the terrible plagues and pestilences of that period.

They felt the need of something and started using poisonous drugs. Bathing is a natural instinct, and all nature shows the importance of baths. Rain is the natural shower bath. The influence of it is shown in the fresher, brighter, and more erect appearance of all living plants. Birds and animals do not neglect their morning baths. If man’s instinct were not perverted by the habits of civilization, he would value the bath highly and bathe freely as do the more humble creatures whose instincts are still true to nature.

Man’s intelligence has made it possible for him to become grossly perverted in almost everything-food, appetite, bathing, etc. Man does not go astray from nature because he lacks intelligence or instinct, but because he wishes to gratify his own desires.

Many are afraid to use on of God’s greatest blessings-pure water-because they have never experienced its beneficial effect.