By ALBERT R. LEDOUX, Ph. D., Chapel Hill, N. C.
Every man must have his vocation; every one his specialty. We are all
dependent on others, whenever problems outside of our own line of
business or research demand a solution.
Recognizing these truths, every man should feel that he owes a duty to
his fellows, and that his motto should not only be “live and let live,”
but also “live and help live.”
No science has done more _gratuitously_, for the advancement of the
human race, than medicine.
No other vocation _gives away_ so much of invention, research, time,
labor, money, to make men stronger, happier, better.
Following out her lofty aims, medicine has called to her aid sister
sciences, and united with them to build up new safeguards around
humanity.
Thus, for example, medicine has united with chemistry and architecture
to form “Sanitary Science,” with all its details of work and endeavor
for the health of nations, towns, villages and homes.
No question which sanitary science discusses and investigates, is more
important than the relation of drinking water to health.
The one grand cry of humanity—yes, of the brute creation, and of the
vegetable world too—“is give me something to eat and drink.” Dame Nature
furnishes about two hundred and fifty articles to man for food, giving
him the greatest variety, from which to choose, when hungry; but, when
he would slake his material thirst, she offers simply water. It is the
most abundant thing upon earth, as every school-boy knows.
Over two-thirds of our globe is covered with this wonderful
liquid—while, on the solid ground, there are comparatively few
localities, where water will not be struck on digging. In fact, our soil
is one vast sponge, holding in its porous mass—water.
The air around holds water in suspension; the trees and lesser plants
hold water in every leaf and branch—while fruits are mainly—water.
Seventy-five of every one hundred pounds of potatoes are—water; one acre
of potatoes requires, at the very lowest estimate, twenty tons of water,
during the growing season, to bring tops and roots to a perfect healthy
maturity.[1]
Eighty per cent. of apples, pears, peaches, &c., is—water.
Eighty-six per cent. of milk is—water. We ourselves are, by weight,
mainly—water.
A body weighing one hundred and twenty pounds, if dried till free from
all its liquids, would weigh but twenty pounds—while three-fourths, by
weight, of the human body is water. If we were to make a box 16 inches
square and the same deep, (a cube of 16 inches,) with walls one inch
thick, and fill it with water, the ratio of water to wood would very
nearly represent the relative proportions of solid and liquid
constituents of the human body, both by weight and volume.
Having taking a hasty glance at the magnitude of the demand of organized
nature form water, we will pursue it no farther in a general way, but
confine ourselves to _man’s_ particular need and the character and
sources of supply.
To obtain the quantity, which he requires to meet the demands of his
system, a man consumes every year, about three-fourths of a ton, or
fifteen hundred pounds of water. Some of this supply comes, of course,
from waste and vegetables, which are, on an average, three-fourths
water, and from bread, which will average 45 per cent. A certain
quantity is also generated in the combustion of food, but the greater
proportion is taken in drink.
It will suffice to mention one or two of the uses of this water, which
plays such an important part in our system. It gives a medium of
circulation—of transportation—to solid, inert substances.
As the great oceans and mighty rivers of earth bear upon their bosoms
noble ships, freighted with the wealth of nations, so in the blood the
precious corpuscles are coursing, borne on in their life-giving,
life-sustaining mission, by the water in which they float. So in the
milk and other animal creation, water bears safely a freight of
valuable, solid particles, or carries off useless solids in solution. It
gives pliancy to muscle and flesh, and serves many another purpose in
the economy of the human system.
It can be seen from the outlines we have just given, without the need of
a further demonstration, that the _quality_ of drinking-water is of the
utmost importance.
It is strange, but true, that man needs to be protected, even by force,
against himself, and this is well exemplified in the matter of
drinking-water.
One of the first and last labors of every State or city Board of Health
is to prevent men from poisoning their drinking-water or allowing others
to do it for them, and to keep them from using it, when it is thus
poisoned.
Those who live in the country are often prone to thank God that they
live beyond the reach of sewer gases and other poisonous contaminations
of city wells; but, before being too confident, let us ask ourselves the
question, “are the people of our villages, or on our farms and
plantations, entirely free from typhoid fever, diphtheria and other
diseases, whose origin is so _often_ traced to impure drinking-water.”
But what is pure water? It may surprise some of our readers when we
state that _absolutely pure_ water, used constantly, is unhealthy!
Distilled water, taken copiously, will soon make one sick. A number of
diseases which prevail in some mountain countries are ascribed by many
to drinking comparatively pure snow water. Another surprise for some,
perhaps! We consider water tasteless, but _had_ it no taste we would
loathe it! But we will return to this hereafter.
There are two tasteless, odorless, colorless gases called respectively,
“Hydrogen” and “Oxygen.” If we mix them in a vessel and apply a match,
there is instantly a powerful explosion, heat is generated and there is
formed—water. The two strange, invisible gases have combined and formed
the well-known liquid. Whenever a substance which contains hydrogen,
like wood, paper, starch, sugar, &c., burns, it forms water with oxygen
of the air. In fact, these two gases are always ready, on the slightest
provocation to unite. Rain, or melted snow, approaches nearest to
chemically pure water, but all wells, springs, rivers and seas contain
dissolved substances, in greater or less degree. Water being the most
universal solvent, whenever it comes in contact with the earth,
dissolves the soluble constituents of the soil through which it flows,
and hence it is that on analyzing water we find solid substances in
solution. Streams in their onward course take up more and more matter;
rivers flow into the ocean, and in the ocean the maximum amount of solid
matter in solution is found. There the rivers have been carrying their
load for centuries and leaving it, since water evaporating carries
nothing away with it. Besides these solid bodies some gases are
dissolved by water. Many waters contain, besides mineral and gaseous
bodies, organic matter—living animal and vegetable organisms or decayed
substances.
Having noticed the different classes of foreign ingredients in water,
let us study them a little more closely, considering their effects and
influences on the human system.
_Mineral Ingredients._—These are the substances most frequently met with
in waters, indeed, organic matter may be said to be rare in comparison
to the wide distribution of the inorganic solids. An enumeration will
reveal many things with which we are more or less familiar. The most
common solids in well, river and sea waters, are lime, magnesia, soda,
potash, iron, chlorine, sulphurous acid, silica, phosphoric acid and
alumina.
An analysis of an average soil will reveal the presence of all of these
substances, so that it is very easy to understand how they got into the
water. If we arrange some of them in another way, grouping some
together, we will recognize many things common in medicine or every day
life. Thus we have
Chloride of sodium or common salt.
Sulphate of soda or Glauber’s salt.
Sulphate of magnesia or epsom salt.
Sulphate of lime or plaster.
Carbonate of lime or limestone.
Carbonate of soda or common “soda.”
The effect upon the system of each one of these substances, or
combination of them, when occurring in water is the same as when given
in ordinary prescriptions, but there is a point beyond which chemistry
has not penetrated; for instance, a glass of some mineral waters,
containing but a few grains of solid matter in solution will often
produce a quicker and more powerful effect when taken than twice the
amount of the solid constituents, shown to be present by analysis,
prepared artificially by the apothecary.
The reason of the efficacy of some mineral waters may be in unrecognized
combustion of known elements or the presence of substances as yet beyond
the power of chemistry to detect.
Four of these common substances mentioned above have a characteristic
taste, and as they are all found in nearly every well, it follows that
these waters must have _some_ taste. This, as already stated, is a fact.
We, who are accustomed by constant use to one particular well, fail to
recognize any taste at all, while a stranger will often detect it at
once. Distilled pure water tastes “flat” and very disagreeable to us,
because we miss the salts and gases, which distillation has removed.
A chemist will often work in an atmosphere filled with noxious and
powerfully smelling gases, but will not be able to perceive them, though
a stranger would not only notice them at once, but with great difficulty
endure them.
The mineral constituents in well or river water will average five to
thirty grains per gallon; while they vary in amount, as shown from
analysis from one-twentieth to twenty thousand grains per gallon.[2]
Waters containing much lime or magnesia, are called “hard,” and are the
only kind found in some sections of our country.
Besides the common mineral constituents of water, there are others,
which have been occasionally detected, such as arsenic, barium,
strontium, lithium, bromine, iodine, fluorine, zinc, copper, lead,
silver, antimony, nickel, cobalt, &c., &c. It will be noticed that many
of these are poisonous, but nature suffers their presence, in minute
quantities only,—except in rare instances,—while the localities having
metallic elements in their waters are few and chiefly among mines and
ore-beds. These substances rarely occur in our wells and springs and
hence they need no particular consideration here, though, if present,
only analysis is a safe means of detection.
Where water contains a large amount of mineral matter, it has a decided
effect upon the digestive organs, and, after shorter or longer use,
tends to produce diseases, such as dyspepsia, constipation, gravel, &c.,
&c. But waters with a large enough amount of mineral matter to give them
a decided taste, are called “mineral waters” and are used rather as
medicine, than as a habitual means of slaking thirst.
_The Common Gases_ dissolved or imprisoned by well and spring water are
carbonic acid, sulpurretted hydrogen and the components of air—oxygen
and nitrogen. Of these only one is dangerous—sulpurretted hydrogen—and
that is easily detected by its smell, resembling that of spoiled eggs.
It gives the characteristic odor to “sulphur” waters. Carbonic acid and
air give to waters their sparkling quality—the former being often
artificially introduced, as in “soda-water,” &c.
_The Organic Matter_ in well, spring, and river water may be dead or
living, and we will consider the two classes separately.
Lifeless Organic Substances.—These may be the remains of organized
bodies and plants once living in the water, or animal and vegetable
matter from some outside source. The latter is the most frequent source
of organic impurity.
In localities where heat and marshes abound, water may often be colored
by organic acids and other substances which dissolves, and yet not be
appreciably unhealthy. Such waters are common in some countries, and
present dangerous _possibilities_, should fermentation and putrefaction
at any time set in. Decaying fish and animals, leaves, &c., &c., form
the ordinary and accidental organic impurities of water. These are
unhealthy not only in themselves, but especially because they offer to
the germs of disease or pestilence a harbor and sustenance.
As was stated in the early part of the paper, men must be protected from
themselves and especially against water of their own poisoning. Nature’s
strivings are constantly to make clean the unclean; to dissipate the
noxious and to destroy the hurtful, but man by breaking nature’s laws,
brings ten fold vengeance on his head. The most dangerous poisons in
well water are the drainings of sewers, sinks, yards and privies, and
the refuse from towns.
These organic, poisonous matters ooze through the soil into wells and
springs, and as before said, _may_ not show any bad effect for sometime,
but sooner or later disease and death will surely visit the unsuspecting
household and the physician’s aid be sought in vain, for with every
draught of water which passes the fevered lips, the sufferer imbibes new
poison and hastens the inevitable end. Moreover, the germs of many
contagious diseases, which feed on filth and multiply in foul water, are
nurtured and preserved in warm climates through winter weather, by the
equable temperature of wells and cisterns, and are ready to start anew
on their errand of death, when a favorable moment arrives.
The city of Wilmington is no doubt above the general average of Southern
cities in sanitary condition, but what a picture the February number of
the JOURNAL showed us. Think of it!
“_There was one well two feet from the privy, two wells four feet from
the privy, thirty-three wells ten feet from the privy, two hundred and
twenty wells from twenty to thirty feet!_”
The soil upon which Wilmington is located being “nearly as white as the
seashore _and as permeable_!!”
It is not our purpose at present to depict the danger of such neglect of
sanitary precautions, so much as to point to a remedy.
_1st._ _We say unhesitatingly, if a well shows signs of contamination by
sewerage or other like matter, fill it up!_
_2d._ _Build all sinks and privies as far as possible from the well._
Through permeable soils and strata, dangerous liquids may ooze to a
distance of many feet. We know of cases where wells had been used for
years with no bad effect, when suddenly disease and death appeared. The
poison, though slow in its course, had finally reached the well and a
chemical analysis revealed contamination from privies thirty feet or
more distant.
The living organisms which are found in water are, some of them
injurious; some beneficial.
Under favorable conditions of light, warmth, &c., countless millions of
living things will spring into life in any water; the more impure, the
more abundant they will be. If the water is alkaline they will be
animalculæ or infusoria: if acid, fungi, algæ, &c.
They are never found in fresh rain water, but abundant in nearly every
cistern. The office of infusoria is in water, that of the buzzard on
land: they are scavengers, and purify the liquid by feeding upon the
decaying matters it contains. But the microscope reveals to us in water,
contaminated with sewerage, for instance, minute germs capable of
motion, which, as in the case of the infusoria, live on the organic
matter, but are believed to accompany if not to cause many forms of
contagious disease, filling even the air, in times of epidemic.
To detect many of these impurities and dangers, chemical analysis and
the microscope are sometimes indispensable, but the following rules may
awaken suspicion and lead to a scientific investigation of the quality
of drinking water in some cases.
_A good drinking water is perfectly colorless and transparent, without
smell or noticeable taste and agreeable to the palate. It should not
lose its clearness in boiling and should leave a very small residue on
evaporation._
Where impurities are suspected, an analysis should be obtained if
possible, if not, filtering through charcoal or sand, or boiling will
often either remove or render harmless various dangerous ingredients.
Our State Board of Health have done the people of Wilmington and of the
whole State a great service in directing attention to this subject. May
they go on and prove a mighty blessing to the Old North State. Let us
give them the aid and encouragement they deserve.