Human Physiology. 



and much cattle living in the towns above. It is true that light 

 and air, and living vegetables and animals, are constantly at 

 work purifying this water, and it undergoes a certain amount 

 of beneficial nitration before being served out to the inhabi- 

 tants. In 1858, a ship, with 500 men on board, lay in the 

 river Hooghly for six weeks, in the hottest weather, without 

 losing a man, while the cholera raged on all the vessels around 

 her. The chief difference was that while the crews of the 

 other vessels drank the river water, the crew of the unscathed 

 vessel had an unlimited supply of distilled water. Impure 

 water, containing foul vegetable and animal matter, fills the 

 blood with its impurities, and may be a direct cause of 

 diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid fevers, and all the diseases of 

 impurity. Hard water, water containing lime and other 

 mineral substances, may be a cause of glandular disease, 

 gravel, stone, ossifications, &c., while a pure soft water, rain 

 water filtered through clean sand, or the gravel of insoluble 

 rocks, or distilled water which has absorbed its quota of 

 oxygen, dissolves such concretions, washes every globule of 

 the blood, aids the free action of the skin and all the excret- 

 ing organs, and keeps the whole system in a state of healthful 

 purity. 



Alcoholic and other narcotic drinks often carry diseasing 

 drugs, used for flavouring and adulteration, into the system, 

 and so cause disease; they excite the nervous system, and 

 deaden it, as the reactive result of such excitement. This 

 effect is seen in the increased dose required to produce a 

 certain effect. Alcohol, long continued, or taken in large 

 quantities, brings on unsteadiness, irregular action, or partial 

 paralysis of the nerves, and a morbid excitement and disorder 

 of the brain, culminating in delirium tremens. There is no 

 doubt also that, used in any but the smallest and almost inap- 

 preciable quantities, its tendency is to disorder and weaken the 

 whole nervous system, diminish the activity of the purifying 



