Health, or, How to Live

HOW TO USE WATER

WE take the following from Dr. Jackson’s lectures on the use of water upon the human body, published in the Laws of Life for April, 1860: HHTL 121.1

“THE QUALITY OF WATER TO BE USED. — Water, to be of the highest benefit when used either by the healthy or the sick, should be pure and soft. By purity I mean freedom from impregnation by mineral substances, or earthly salts, or the infusion of vegetable matter, either or all of which render it more or less unfit for external or internal application. There never was a greater mistake in the use of an agent whose natural and ordinary effect is to promote human health, than is made by those who are led to believe that water impregnated with earthy and medicinal substances is more beneficial than water which is entirely free from them. Hence the popular belief that to wash the body in medicated water, or to use it as a drink, is superior to the use of pure water, leads to most doleful results. Water, therefore, which is to be used for bathing, or for drinking purposes, should be as free from all substances which do not enter essentially into its composition, as it is possible to obtain it. Hence in addition to its purity it should be soft. HHTL 121.2

“Hard water is neither fit to use as a detergent, nor as a diluent. Its unfitness for external use upon the body is readily perceived by whoever applies it for any length of time. For, the skin which in its healthy conditions is soft and velvety to the touch, and feels to one who has the sense of touch nicely developed, as if it were covered with oil, and then rubbed with the softest material till it is polished like Mahogany, when it is washed for any length of time in hard water, loses that softness, and acquires in its stead a roughness and harshness which is very unpleasant to the sight and to the touch. Housewives who have their hands much in water, know the difference between the effects upon their skin, of hard and soft water. In one instance the skin of the hands becomes dry, and readily cracks, making them sore: in the other, the hands are soft, the skin pliable and smooth. It is a very great mistake, therefore, on the part of persons who are in health, ever to use hard water for purposes of bathing: and however desirable it is to have what in common language is known as ‘living water’ — whether from a running brook, or a living spring, or a bubbling, boiling well — over water which is stagnant, by having been gathered and confined in a reservoir, still the difference is in favor of the latter when it is soft, and the running water is hard. Thus, if a family has near its dwelling a living spring of hard water, and in one corner of the house a well-built cistern in which water from the clouds is caught and kept pure, the fact that the rain-water has been for some time confined in a cistern, while the water from the spring is constantly fresh, does not overthrow the superiority of the rain-water — its softness being a quality which makes up for any lack of freshness that it may have. To satisfy one that this view is correct, it needs only to be used for the purposes of bathing a sufficient length of time to show its effects. HHTL 121.3

“WATER AS A DRINK.— It is not only for its effects upon the skin and indirectly upon the organs lying immediately subjacent to the skin, that water should be pure and soft; but, if possible, its effects upon the internal structure of the body, when taken as a drink, render it more imperatively necessary that pure and soft water should be used. Eighty per cent. of the human creature is made up of water. Thus, if you take a person weighing a hundred pounds, and place him where all the fluids in his body shall be removed, and you have left the actual dry material of which he is composed, he will be reduced in weight to twenty pounds. Now, for all this organic use, this great life-sustaining purpose, nothing but pure water will serve. Just to the degree that there is in it any material which does not enter essentially into the formation of this remarkable substance, is it spoiled for the uses to which we wish to put it. You can have no lime, soda, magnesia, arsenic, sulphur, nor any other medicinal substances in it; — nor the essences of vegetable substances, without rendering it unfit for the purposes for which it is intended in the great constructive policy of Nature; as applied to the human body. This proposition being correct, we only need to go one step further to demolish entirely the popular belief in the virtues of medicinal springs. And this can be done easily enough whenever the occasion for doing it shall be appropriate. But my purpose at this time is to state my objections, not against the use of waters which are usually termed medicinal but against the use of waters which are not so considered, but are generally regarded as fit for use in the common purposes to which water is put as a drink, and in the preparations of our food. In other words, I wish to call your attention to the unfitness of all waters which are simply hard, for use as a drink, and for the purposes of cookery. HHTL 122.1

“On no single point is there need of enlightenment more than on this, of the superior quality of soft over hard water as a hygienic agent. Not only is hard water productive in many instances of diseased kidneys, irritation of the bladder, mucous dyspepsia, and scrofulous development, but as I have said before, its effects on the skin are to leave it rough, causing it to put on a dry, scaly appearance, making it to crack — and its effects on the mucous membrane are even worse, creating an irritation of that texture, serving to introduce dyspeptic conditions, sore throat, nasal catarrh, inactivity of the liver, costiveness, piles, and headache. Persons using it as a daily drink, never mingling it with anything else, would be marked over whole districts of country by habitual constipation, by dry skin, by shrivelled muscle, and are therefore, as if by instinct, led to avoid its use, unless modified by articles such as milk, sugar, tea, coffee, and alcoholic mixtures. I have known persons taking hygienic treatment for constipation of the bowels, whom physicians had utterly failed to cure by any hydropathic appliance, and have been compelled to resort to medicines, immediately relieved on the use of pure soft water as a drink. But this is only half its value. Its power as a solvent, as well as a tonic, its gentle and invigorating effect on free mucous surfaces, thus indirectly securing the health of all the senses, whose niceties of action depend on the health of the mucous tissue, are evidences of its advantage as a hygienic agent. HHTL 123.1

“We who are so artificially educated in all that pertains to the nicety of perception by the special senses, know very little of the instinctive dislike which the unperverted taste would show toward hard water as a drink. The animals might teach us on this point. Horsemen, who study the natural conditions of their horses, and seek to preserve their health, are very particular in procuring soft water for them to drink, they having been taught that the taste of the horse is so perfect and nice in this matter, as to cause him even when thirsty, to refuse to drink at hard-water springs, and go for miles till he can find soft water. Besides, horsemen say that the remote effects of hard water as a drink for the horse, are, that instead of a glossy, sleek appearance of the hair which the horse shows when in the habit of drinking soft water, there arises a staring, dry, and apparently half-deadened condition of the hair and skin, making the grooming of the animal doubly difficult. HHTL 124.1

“I am satisfied that right views and a practical reformation on this point on the part of the people, would do much toward introducing them to better conditions of health, even though other things should remain as at present. And I should advise every family who may read this lecture, and who use hard water either for drink or for culinary purposes, to take measures immediately to supply themselves with soft water in abundant quantities; and if it can only be obtained by being caught in reservoirs as it falls from the clouds, to filter it before it is used. Filtered rain-water is perfectly unobjectionable as a drink; and an expenditure of from five to twenty dollars in the purchase of a filter, would secure to any family in this land the means of purifying all the water they might need for drink and for cooking purposes.” HHTL 124.2

I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14. HHTL 124.3