Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-01
WHERE ..BACILLA THRIVE.

i n A1s
Tho Filter Which Is Advertised to Cleanse
Itself Is a Fraud-The Deadly Germs
Multiply in It-Good Water for Coffee
Notes and Queries.
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l
One of the things the mistress of house
must specially ordain to have at all times
and seasons is positively pure water for
drinking and cooking. Very little water in
the world is naturally pure-only the
mountain streams fed from topmost SHOWS,
or SPRINGS that have filtered through beds of
sand and gravel. In general we have to be
thankful for water free from immediate con-
tamination-that has no cats and dogs float
ing in the lake or stream which supplies it,
no scum of duckweed, or wash of weedy
shores and farm-yards on Its borders, no
microscopic growth in close pipes, giving
the water the well-known cucumber taste"
Water free from taste or sediment is sup
posed to meet all requirements.
The fact is not t'regarded that clear waters
often contain mineral salts dissolved from
the deposits in the soil and rocks through
which they have made their way. This may
contain traces of gypsum and epson salts
from beds or veins of carbonates, or be harsh
with iron or lime in quantity too small to
have any immediate effects, but certain in
time to leave unhealthful deposits in weak
systems.
How to Improve the Coffee.
For weeks after the filter was started in
our new housekeeping, the improvement in
coffee was marvel, so marked that ques-
tion was made as to the quality of the cof-
fee bought last. It was the same we always
used, but the pleasant distinct flavor re-
mained a mystery till one day it came into
cause. Unfiltered, the old rankness was
the same, and We took the lesson to heart
rejoicing The same refinement was OBJ
servable in soups and the entire range of
cookery, till never wanted so much as to
boil potato unless in filtered water. The
we'll was clear and considered uncommonlv
good water, but L set 1t down in my mind that
no well water was SO pure that it might not
be purer.
To secure this luxury of perfectly pure,
sweet, soft water, incapable of leaving de-
posits which lead to stone, gout, gravel and
adhesions, with their train of suffering, is
worth = little experiment and watchfulness.
The first thing taught new girl in the
kitchen is that not a drop of water is to be
used for drink or cooking until two large
pailfuls have been run off to empty the pipes
of water which stood in them over night.
The first drawn is not wasted, but need be
kept id a frkin for washing, as all water is
softer by standing some hours or days. The
metallic taste of the water first drawn Is
very unpleasant, and spoils coffee or any
thing made with 1t. The habit of filling the
teakettle over night to save time in getting
breakfast is just as bad. And water left in
copper-bottomed teakettle is absolutely
poisonous.
How to Account for Some Ills.
These cramps, these megrins we hardly
know how to account for, which lessen our
activity and comfort, though they hardly
lay us aside, are very justly traced to i'm
purities of food, air and water, our great
sources of vitality. A new cause of COM
plant arises in many towns supplied with
excellent water, which is led through
pipes treated with coal tar. The
taste is slight, just enough to spoil
so virulent foe to vitality that the i'm
measurably small percentage dissolved in
the water has been enough to bring on at
tacks at first taken for typhoid fever. The
weakest solutions of coal tar are death to
insect foes, and altogether too dangerous to
human life to be used for drinking water.
One never wants to touch water so tainted
unless it has been boiled and filtered.
Don't be satisfied with any filter, how
ever recommended, unless it fills these con-
ditions.
First, it must be stoneware, or enameled
iron. Tin and zinc dissolve daily, in the
water they hold, and the salts of tin or zinc
are not conducive to health or safety after
four weeks. Stoneware is best on all ac-
counts, as it cools the water and is easily
kept clean as well as safe.
Second, and this is a great point, the
filtering substance must be readily removed
for cleansing. If of charcoal and sand,
there should be at least two quarts of it.
Insist upon seeing the amount in the filter.
No Filter Will Cleanse Itself.
I remember inspecting large standard
filter whose name has been sworn by for 20
years, only to find that the q gallons
of water were expected to cleanse in pass
ing through about coffee cupful of char
coal and pebbles Its fltering properties
were perfect tarce. Don't take any filters
which profess to be self-cleansing by turn
ing water through the reverse way and |
washing out the sediment. Charcoal ab- |
serbs impurities which it only parts with |
by fire. 1t can be purified to use again by
heating some hours in a clean clay pot, |
closely stopped. The best form of charcoal |
IS compressed block which can be heated |
over and over, to redness in the frebox of
range or furnace.
There are filters Of porus stone and artifi- |
,ial stone which do good work, if the filter
ng part could only be removed by cleans
ng.
But where it is one with the wall of the
water jar, the deposit of slime which forms
he upper side remains day after day, and
n time the stone is saturated with
incture Of this jelly-like substance, the
,ery culture-bed of bacilli, which q micro
cope of power detects swarming in the
tone. The fixed brick filters in cisterns,
liter. short time, are source of danger
rom this cause.
I repeat, no kind of filter is safe, unless
constantly removed and cleansed by fire or
Electricity. If this rules out nine-renths of
he filters made at the present time, am
orry, but the change cannot be too quickly
made to correct methods. Too much of life
md health is at stake in our families, to
,alter with inefficient and dangerous in
7entions