Does not this conclusively prove that this large class of diseases which cause the death of nearly 50,000 people a year in the United States, in addition to the 35,000 killed by typhoid fever, are caused by the use of impure water?

City Water Supplies Unsafe.

The question naturally arises, What water shall we drink? What water shall we use in the preparation of the various articles of food and the different liquids, other than simple water, which we introduce into our stomachs to nourish the body, or for other reasons? I will say here that there are thousands of intelligent people who would not think of drinking our impure city water, who allow their cooks to use it in the preparation of all their food, tea, coffee, etc., without once thinking that it is more important to use pure water for cooking than for drinking. But more of this later.

Where shall we obtain pure water? Certainly not from city water supplies. They are rendered impure and dangerous to life and health by the drainage from cultivated fields, where the rains wash the fertilizers, both animal and commercial, into the streams, and by pollution from shops, factories and other sources, as will be shown further on. That such conditions exist can be seen by any one who will take the time to investigate, as I have done.

The Ridgewood water of Brooklyn contains an immense number of bacteria and animalculæ. At one time, a few years since, there were as many as six millions of a kind of vegetable starfish named Asterionella in one glass of this water. This is all the more interesting from the fact that each one of these bacteria contains a minute globule of oil. There would have been a good opening for the Standard Oil Company. The decomposition of these bodies naturally produced a decidedly unpleasant taste and smell. There are more or less of these bodies present at all times.

What a vegetable garden the Ridgewood reservoir must have been when a single glass of its water contained six millions of vegetable ornagisms. This Asterionella, be it remembered, is but one of over 200 different forms of animal and vegetable life contained in our city waters. They are all fully illustrated by George Chandler Whipple, the present biologist of Brooklyn's water supply, in his recent book, "The Microscopy of Drinking Water.” Five minutes spent in examination of these illustrations ought to be sufficient to cure any one of the desire to either eat or drink Ridgewood water, whether its inhabitants are living or dead.

I would refer any one desiring to investigate the condition of the city water to an article in the May, 1901, number of the "Brooklyn Medical Journal," by Dr. Hibbert Hills, now director of the bacteriological laboratory of the Boston Board of Health, but who a few years since was chief biologist of the Brooklyn Health Department, with sanitary supervision of the watershed. Also to the annual report of the New York State Board of Health for 1898, which contains definite statements of the condition of hundreds of farms, residences, shops and other places bordering the streams and ponds of the Brooklyn watershed, where the drainage from horse and cow stables, barnyards, pig pens, hen houses and yards, rabbit pens, duck yards and ponds, stagnant and filthy water pools, piles of manure, ashes, garbage and all kinds of animal and vegetable refuse, together with actual sewage from houses, slop sinks, cesspools, urinals, privies and water closets, empty into and form a part of the delicious Ridgewood water which the people of Brooklyn have been accustomed to brag about and drink in its natural state or in the form of mineral waters, ginger ale, soda water, tea, coffee, etc., and to eat in all kinds of food prepared from it; in their bread, cake, pies, puddings, cooked fruits and vegetables, soups, fruit ices, etc., etc.

Any one who can drink the city water or any beverage made from it, or eat anything cooked in it, or prepared with it, after reading these articles, must have an exceedingly strong stomach.

These articles, be it remembered, refer to the Brooklyn water, which, in the past, has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the purest of city waters.

For the delectation of the inhabitants of Manhattan Island I will say that their Croton water is much more impure and unwholesome than Brooklyn's Ridgewood. I think it is superfluous to say anything more about Croton water.

The only way to avoid this pollution is to keep the watersheds which gather the water used entirely in a state of Nature, that is, free from cultivation and population. This may possibly come in the next generation, but probably not in this.

Many people who realize the danger of using the impure city water, boil it and feel happy; others filter it and rest secure. Let us see if they have remedied the trouble.

Boiled Water.

Boiling impure water, aside from the destruction of the life of

some of the disease germs, the elimination of some of the gases and the deposit of a portion of the carbonate of lime, always makes it more impure. Boil a gallon of water until there is but a quart left and the quart will contain all the impurities of the gallon, except as above stated, and be nearly four times as impure as before. Continue the boiling and all the impurities, animal, vegetable and mineral, except the gases thrown off, will be reduced to one solid mass. The water which is evaporated and passes off as steam is very nearly pure. But, you will say, it kills the dangerous germs. We will suppose it does, but their remains furnish material for bacterial life to feed upon. Do you relish the idea of eating in food, or drinking, their dead and decomposing bodies, which poison the water by their decomposition? The fact is, scientific investigation has proved that boiling only kills the feeblest, the least injurious germs.

Prof. Percy Frankland, Ph.D., F.R.S., the noted English scientist, and a recognized authority on water, says:

"The germs which propagate epidemic or zymotic diseases may be boiled three hours and yet not be destroyed."

Try a simple experiment. Put unboiled city water in one bottle, and the same that has been boiled for half an hour or more in another, cork tightly and keep in the sun or in a warm place for a week or longer, and note the difference. The unboiled water will show a marked depreciation in looks, taste and smell, but that which has been boiled will be so much worse in these respects that no one would think of using it. In comparison with these you can submit a properly sealed bottle of pure distilled water to the same conditions, and at the end of a year it will be found to be as pure, sweet and perfect as when first bottled.

Filtered Water.

The domestic filter is a dangerous article of the worst description. People rely upon it in fancied security, while in 99 cases out of every 100 the water is more dangerous to health and life after passing through it than before. All soluble mineral salts and all impurities of every description, including the deadly poisons from disease germs, which are held in solution, pass through the very best filter at all times as freely as the water itself, and, unless the filter is cleaned and sterilized several times a day, which is rarely if ever done, the germs of typhoid fever and other diseases multiply with great rapidity within the filter itself and pass

through with the water. Many eminent chemists and scientists have testified to the truth of these statements.

While water laden with the germs of disease and the poisonous substances called toxines produced by them, and decomposing animal and vegetable matters, poisons the system and produces typhoid and other fevers, and many acute intestinal and other diseases, and causes the sudden death of thousands, the mineral elements contained in the water we drink, and in that which is used in preparing our food, are far more disastrous to health and life, but, being much slower in their action, are consequently unrecognized and unthought of.

A French physiologist has truly said:

"A man is as old as his arteries."

Please remember this, for it is very important, "A man is as old as his arteries." What makes our arteries old? Young, healthy blood-vessels are very elastic and allow the blood to circulate freely through them. In old age they become hard and unyielding, their capacity is diminished, and the blood stream becomes smaller and moves with less rapidity. These changes are caused by the deposit within the walls of the blood-vessels of fibrinous and gelatinous substances, and of lime and other earthy compounds contained in the water taken into the system in food and drink. This deposit is liable to take place in the dense structures of any of the joints, in the tendons and muscles; in short, wherever the blood circulates, which, of course, is in every organ and tissue of the body, in the heart, the lungs, the digestive organs, the various organs of secretion and excretion, the brain and nervous system, etc., producing various diseased conditions, impairing the action of one and all, and hastening the time when the human machine will cease to act and the spirit take its departure.

The following from Dr. C. W. De Lacy Evans, the noted author, physician and surgeon, of London, states the case truly and forcibly:

"The combinations of lime held in solution in the water we drink, when taken into the stomach, are soon distributed throughout the system and deposited in all the tissues, exactly as they are precipitated and form incrustations on the bottoms of kettles in which water is boiled. The result is general induration, partial, and often, in some organs and tissues, complete ossification. The bones become brittle, the joints and muscles stiff and rheumatic; gravel and stones form in the bladder; the kidneys, liver, heart,

nerves and brain become indurated and sluggish in their action; all the bodily functions are impaired; the nerves weaken, the mind loses its vigor, the memory fails, and senility and death creep on."

The evil influences of hard and mineral waters are, therefore, chief producing causes of the conditions that constitute old age as well as many of the more serious diseases of mankind, and demand the earnest consideration of every one who desires health, activity and length of days.

It is a common idea among the people that the minerals contained in spring and other waters are necessary to properly nourish the body, but chemists and physiologists know that inorganic minerals, such as are contained in water, cannot be assimilated and used, but must be removed from the body or remain to obstruct and impair vital action. A volume could be filled with scientific testimony as to the truth of these statements in regard to minerals in water.

Our food contains, in organized forms suitable for immediate use, all the minerals necessary for the needs of the body.

All city supply waters, and all spring and well waters, necessarily and inevitably contain more or less of these inorganic minerals and earthy matters in solution, and are objectionable in proportion to the quantity present. The purest are the best, but the purest are not good enough. The purest spring waters, and the most popular ones, are those which come nearest in analysis to distilled water.

Some of the so-called spring waters sold in this city are nothing but city water which has been passed through ordinary, improperly cared-for filters. This I personally know to be a fact.

The presence of organic and inorganic impurities in the spring waters sold in this and other cities is a matter which demands the serious consideration of the boards of health of such cities. In the last annual report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station the result of the analysis of twenty-four spring waters, sold in the State and elsewhere, showed that fourteen of them were unsafe and unfit for use on account of organic contaminations alone. The report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health gives the analysis of forty-five spring waters sold in that State, which showed that thirty-four of them contained the waste organic products of human or animal contamination, or, in other words, filtered sewage. The spring waters of Massachusetts and Connecticut are probably no worse than those of other States. No dependence whatever can be placed upon the quality of