The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1051 
Health Notes 
Talks With a Trained Nurse 
THE USE OF AVATER 
Dear Home Nurse : On these hot 
Summer days how pleasant it is to think 
of the rippling and splashing of cool 
brooks, with their pools and deep, shad¬ 
owy little bays, and to recall to mind the 
fresh green of the grasses that grow be¬ 
side them—to smell in memory the pun¬ 
gent mint. And how fortunate we who 
can rest in such sweet spots. Can you 
picture a world without water? Of course 
not—such a world could not exist. We 
ourselves could not exist, for our very 
bodies are largely composed of water. 
We could do very well without silver, or 
gold, or diamonds, or without meat, and 
many other things for which there is a 
substitute. There is no substitute for 
water. There is no fluid in the world 
that does not contain water. We used to 
do without bathtubs, and lots of us still 
do without much inconvenience, for where 
there’s a will there’s a way. As late as 
the eighteenth century the use of water 
for personal cleansing purposes was not 
generally prevalent. Indeed, an aristocrat¬ 
ic lady of France was wont to wash her 
face and hands only occasionally, and 
some moralists forbade bathing as an im¬ 
moral practice. True, the old Roman 
Baths, famous as they were for their lux¬ 
urious appointments, were scenes of licen¬ 
tiousness and immorality, and they were 
in part responsible for this taboo. In 
our own country it is not so many years 
since an effort was made to prohibit fre¬ 
quent bathing by legislation on the score 
of its injurious effects upon the health. 
Happily the times have changed. Scarce¬ 
ly ever nowadays does one meet a person 
who does not enjoy the benefits of the 
bath. 
Next to the kidneys, the skin is the 
most important excretory organ we have. 
A burn covering two-thirds of the surface 
of the body is, with few exceptions, fatal. 
That is because the toxins of the body 
are sealed in and the victim dies from the 
effects of poison, rather than from the 
burn. If the pores of our skin are clog¬ 
ged so that they cannot easily function 
very likely we shall not die—at least not 
at once—but we may develop some ab¬ 
normal condition; anything from a bad 
disposition or a poor complexion to 
Bright’s disease or tuberculosis. You 
may say, “But what about those people 
in the dark ages who did not bathe, or 
that lady of France who seldom washed 
her face?” Then I will reply that those 
were strenuous times. All human wants 
were satisfied by great physical effort, and 
man literally bathed in his own sweat. 
As for the lady of France, I doubt if her 
health or her complexion were as good as 
they might have been. Black plagues, 
smallpox epidemics and other diseases 
that worked havoc with the population 
certainly could have been controlled, at 
least to some extent, by a plentiful use 
of water. 
Modern science has done marvelous 
things in the treatment of disease by 
surgery, electricity and radium, but none 
of these things can take the place of wa¬ 
ter. And none of these things is so easily 
obtained. The poorest person in the 
word can have, without charge, unlimited 
quantities of one of the most precious 
things in the world. 
Unquenched thirst may become an ex¬ 
quisite agony. If you have ever experi¬ 
enced it, you know how impossible it is 
to deny the demand. No medicine, no 
food, no diversion can make us forget 
that we are thirsty. Now all of this ap¬ 
plies to the needs of our invalid. No mat¬ 
ter what his ailment is, water is good for 
him. If he has a skin disorder that for¬ 
bids bathing, he needs more water to 
drink. If he can’t drink as much as he 
should he needs more baths. Doesn't that 
seem logical to you? Water is an actual 
curative agent. When you give a dose of 
medicine with water, quite frequently it 
is the water that cures. Start today to 
preach the doctrine of water—one of 
Hod’s greatest gifts to man. 
ELSIE M’lNTYRE SAFFORD. R. N. 
Sewage Disposal 
My difficulty is the right kind of a 
cesspool to build. I have recently bought 
a house in which I have to install proper 
plumbing system. I am providing for 
the plumbing fixtures and the line of pipe 
that goes down to meet the earthen pipe 
which runs to the cesspool, but at that 
point I am stuck. What kind of a cess¬ 
pool should I build? Can I build a tank 
of concrete for the first chamber and have 
it discharge into a second tank, also of 
concrete, and in that way provide for the 
future as to pumping out the second 
chamber at long periods? l~ou can see 
from my question I know very little about 
the matter, and, to explain more fully, the 
house stands on a plot of ground 50x104 
ft., and has now an old-fashioned out¬ 
house which I wish to do away with ; also 
there is a cesspool into which the sink 
water now runs and seeps away through 
the sandy soil. Can I use this sink-water 
cesspool as a secondary chamber into 
which the overflow will go from the first, 
or airtight chamber, or must I build a 
new system entirely? According to the 
folks around where I live, water is found 
at about 6 ft. below the surface. 
Oceanside, N. Y. h. l. h. 
Y"ou can construct a septic tank, or, in 
your sandy soil, dig a cesspool to receive 
the discharges from your house plumbing. 
A cesspool, which is simply a dry well, 
stoned up without mortar and perhaps 6 
or 8 ft. deep and as far across, is the 
most simple method of sewage disposal, 
and often used where it can be dug far 
enough away from any well to make it 
safe. This safety distance, however, is 
an unknown quantity, since no one knows 
just what the movements of underground 
water may be in a given locality. Or¬ 
dinarily, w r here cesspools are used, 100 to 
200 ft. is not too much. If you are in 
a closely built-up section, cesspools may 
be forbidden by local regulations. 
The more safe method of sewage dis¬ 
posal is by means of a septic tank of con¬ 
crete. This may be built by home labor 
and need not be very expensive. The 
solids of household sewage are held in 
such tanks until dissolved, or rotted, and 
are then discharged with fluid outflow 
into the ground near the surface, where 
the disinfectant action of the upper lay¬ 
ers of the soil renders the discharge harm¬ 
less. The outflow' of a septic tank might 
be carried to a cesspool, as you suggest, 
if there was no danger of the contamina¬ 
tion of nearby wells from the contents of 
the cesspool. 
The State College of Agriculture at 
Ithaca, N. Y r ., publishes a very good plan 
for a small septic tank for household use, 
wffiich will be sent you upon application. 
M. B. D. 
Water Supply from Brook 
I have a house (two stories) which has 
a brook near by, coming from a hill in 
back of the house, twice as high as the 
house. What is the best and cheapest 
way to have running water through the 
house, utilizing this brook? If I build a 
reservoir higher up than the roof of the 
house I have to dig over 400 ft. for the 
piping. If I use an electric pump I can 
tap the brook near the house. But this 
brook gathers a lot of surface w r ater after 
a heavy rain and is then very yellow. 
How can I overcome that? Or, could 
that yellow water be filtered by running 
into a reservoir? E. J. V. A. 
Upper Black Eddy, Pa. 
It is doubtful if the water supply that 
you contemplate using will be satisfac¬ 
tory for household use. Any source of 
supply that becomes contaminated with 
surface water is likely to be unfit for 
drinking, and may possibly be dangerous. 
While I do not know about the conditions 
of fall and flow in the brook that you 
metion, it is probable that a hydraulic 
ram could be used to pump the water au¬ 
tomatically from the creek to either a 
pressure tank located in the basement of 
the house or an elevated tank in the 
attic. 
In some cases where water is turbid it 
can be cleared by the use of lime. In 
some other cases aluminum sulphate used 
at the rate of 1 oz. to 60 eu. ft. of water 
can be used to clear the water. This does 
not make the w r ater safe for drinking, 
however. Chlorine is used for this pur¬ 
pose, but I know of no practical way of 
automatically mixing it with the water 
supply in farm practice. Perhaps a let¬ 
ter to your State College or to the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture at Washington, 
D. C., might bring you information along 
this line. 
Just as surely as profits must be saved as well as 
earned, the SPEED WAGON on the farm is an 
economy which leads to larger bank balances at 
the close of the year. 
No matter what your transportation needs may 
be, the SPEED WAGON supplies them at the 
lowest cost. Hauling a capacity load to the mar¬ 
kets or returning empty, the SPEED WAGON 
operates at a cost that is actually a saving. 
* * * * * 
Twelve standard bodies emphasize the SPEED 
WAGON’S suitability to every form of rural 
transportation. 
Dependability, length of life, and the accessi¬ 
bility of moving parts assure the continuous 
service most vital on the farm. 
* * * * * 
And while payment of the purchase price is fol¬ 
lowed by practically a total freedom from addi¬ 
tional expenditures, the first cost is almost un¬ 
believably low. 
Capacity, 500 to 2500 pounds. Chassis, $1185 at Lansing, 
plus tax. Designed and manufactured in the 
big Reo shops,—not assembled. 
REO MOTOR CAR company, Lansing. Michigan 
k 
Economy for Every Phase of 
Farm Transportation 
Fresh Air Heat at the 
right Temperature 
The exclusive Tubular Combustion Chamber heats 
fresh, pure air in tubes — not in a body. 
THATCHER TUBULAR FURNACE 
warms the air to the right temperature and insures 
perfect circulation. 
Write for illustrated “Tubular” booklet 
TO A TPT H7P HEATERS 
1 ilA 1 dlHiK & RANGES 
Since 1850 
THATCHER FURNACE CO., 39-41 St. Francis Street, NEWARK, N. J. 
Eastern Display Rooms, 133-135 West 35th St., N. Y. City Western Display Rooms, 341 No. Clark St., Chicago, III. 
The 
“Pride” 
Send for 
Catalog 80 
A Modern Bathroom, $60 
Just one of our wonderful bargains Set com¬ 
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bath tub, one 19 Inch roll rim enamelled flat- 
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water closet with porcelain tank and oat pout 
hinge seat; all china index faucets, nickel-plated 
traps, and all nickel-plated heavy fittings. 
J. M. SEIDENBERG CO.. Inc. 
254 W. 34 St. Bet. 7th and 8th Aves. N. Y. C. 
EDMONDS POULTRY 
ACCOUNT BOOK 
If you keep only ten or a dozen liens, 
there will be Satisfaction and Profit 
In knowing just howthe account stands. 
This book will tell the whole story. 
The account may be begun at any time, 
and the balance struck at any time. 
Simple and Practical. 
Price, $1.00 - - To Canada, $1.25 
For sale by 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West 30th St., New York 
