SOME SPECIAL REGULATIVE PROCESSES 331 



three quarters water, and the blood four fifths. Gastric juice is ninety- 

 seven per cent, sweat is ninety-eight per cent, and saliva is ninety-nine 

 per cent water. 



All the vital processes are carried on more or less through the agency 

 of water. Without food a man can exist for sixty days, as has been 

 demonstrated by experience. But six or eight days without water in 

 some form means a horrible death. As one authority expresses it: 

 "Water is a very important food element, as all physiologic changes 

 take place in a watery solution. Water is the medium through which 

 the body is nourished." 



It must always be remembered that the water excreted from the body 

 is heavily laden with various poisonous matters. For instance, the sweat 

 contains about one half of one per cent of urea, besides certain lactates, 

 sudorates, and inorganic salts. The kidney secretion contains nearly, 

 two per cent of urea, also uric acid, creatin, creatinin, xanthin, leucin, 

 cystin, taurin, besides many other poisons. 



Few people drink enough water. Nine out of ten people who suffer 

 from chronic constipation, " biliousness," habitual headache, kidney dis- 

 orders, etc., are, in reality, merely in need of more fluid, with which the 

 impurities formed in their bodies may be washed away. One week of 

 free water-drinking will "cure " many of these cases. 



Water is the best "cathartic" the only safe cathartic known. 

 The cathartics usually given act by causing an irritation in the intes- 

 tinal tube, as a result of which a large amount of water is drawn from 

 the rest of the body to the intestine. But the general system suffers 

 for the fluid thus drained off, and the after effect is to leave the intestine 

 in a worse condition than in the beginning. Only by another dose can 

 the fluid be drawn back into the intestine, and then the reaction and 

 resulting constipation are more marked than before. So with repeti- 

 tions the matter becomes worse and worse. As all practical physicians 

 know, the most intractable cases of constipation are those resulting from 

 the habit of taking cathartic drugs. 



In disorders of the kidneys, water-drinking is quite the most impor- 

 tant feature of the treatment. The kidneys are mainly filters, their 

 function being mainly to separate and rid the body of a certain por- 

 tion of water laden with impurities. The more pure water taken into 

 the system, up to a certain point, the less work there is for the kidneys. 

 There need be no fear of overtaxing the kidneys by free drinking of 

 pure water. When, however, one drinks large quantities of any other 

 fluid, such as wine or beer, the work of the kidneys is enormously 

 increased. In fact, it is safe to say that kidney disease always follows 

 the excessive use of beer. 



