The Topeka state journal., 1897-09-11
MANS DEBT TO WATER
DR.. ROby's Paper, Which Was
Widely Advertised
At the KarniVal Knights Meet
ing as an Essay,
On "Is it Safe to Drink Water
What the Doctor Says About
the Fluid.

By the double entry system of book
Keeping, theRe is in the ledger of the
world an account of debt and credit be-
tween water and man. But the entries
are all on one side. Water owes moth
ing to man, but man owes his largest
debt to water. How much we owe to
water will never be told.
The Bible has tried upwards of $50
times to tell the story. ArchimedeS,
watt, Columbus, Sir Francis Drake,
capt. Cook, Sir John Franklin, Doctor
Kane, Lieutenant Perry and Nansen,
have all told the world portions of the
story. Humboldt, De Soto, Livingston
Stanley, Lieutenant Maury, Guyot and
RecIus have each told a portion of the
tale, and so have Priestley, ,HeImholtz,
Lleblg and Stilliman- But no man shall
tell it all.
The dream of a universe without wa
ter has never entered the brain of man.
Dives dreamed of water in the driest
place we have any account of.
The flame that leaps two hundred
thousand miles from the sun is a hy
drogen flame, and the spectroscope
proclaims the presence of oxygen in
that conf1agration. Oxygen and hy-
drogen are the Siamese twins of the
universe.
Almost three-fourths of the earth's
surface is covered by water from the
depth of a ripple on the sea beach to
an unknown depth. Soundings having
depth in the Atlantic without finding
bottom.
The whole surface of the globe is
covered by an invisible envelope of wa
ter to an unknown height.
Water can be wrung from the dry
air of Sahara and melted from the eter-
nal ice caps of the poles. 1t is found
in every rock and structure in the deep
foundations of the earth and in all the
soils on the planet.
1t flows and dances through every
blade of grass and through leaf and
tree and flower.
1t sings in the meadows and roars
and thunders in cataracts and seas. 1t
rises to the clouds like an incense and
falls to the thirsty plains like a bene-
diction. 1t is ruler of more miles and
millions than all the crowned heads of
the earth. 1t makes and unmakes ma
tiOnS and holds all men in a destiny as
grim and unyielding as death itself. It
floats every keel that man has fashion
ed. 1t houses the 1eviathan and all the
finny tribes.
Every tissue of your body and mine
is in debt to water for both existence
and comfort. No drop of blood could
leave the heart or return to it without
water. No morSel of food could ever
be digested and converted into nutr1-
ment without the aid of water. No
worn out material could be excreted
from the body without it's aid. Take
all the water from your frame ll anu anu
you would be but heap of dry Dust
without life, motion or form Take
away water and the hand would lose
it's cunning, and the strength of Sam
shadow, which no cloud could cast
without water.
Did you ever think what a wonderful
role water plays in the processes OF
life. growth and repair?
In the human system there IS Won
derful mechanical system of distribut-
ing fluids charged with nutriment and
collecting and expelling waste mater
aT~f fz a
forces the blood through a series or
pipes, called arteries, to all parts OF the
body and that blood is 9O2 parts in l.
600 pure water. All the solids have 10
be Houified before they can get into the
circulation at all. Then the veins, like
the waste pipes and sewers OF a city
carry back from all parts OF the pody
in a LIQUID state all the worn out ceIIS,
some of them to be worked over ana
purified and returned to the outfoW
through the arteries, and the unuSaple
portions to be cast out through the otn-
er channels of waste and go to the rub
bish heap But without water in the
circulation. no blood would now, no
food could be sent into the blood Tor
distribution and none could be built INTO
the tissues. Oxygen, uncombined with
hydrogen, is not water, but 1T is FOUND
in all the tissues and its oxld1zlns
properties sets free from other mater
iaIs that energy or entity the manifeS-
tation of which we call life. ana IN OK
idizing other materials Whlch contain
hydrogen. oxygen combines with the
hydrogen and produces water IN the
tiSsues About seven-tenthS of the whole
body, bone, muscles, nerve, brain ana
blood, is water
Dr. Bellows, notapIe bosloh cneiA
ist, says: 49,, H.
water, to perform perfectly the du-
ties assigned to it in the human econ
omy must be perfectly pure. NoIhlhS
but oxygen and hydrogen coIlplLieu c'so,,fii Es.ti
pass through the system to accomphsn3
the various purposes of nutrition, anu
every element combined with them III
water must be disposed of by the excre-
tories and must be a source OF e1npaf-
rassment and disease to the delicate or
cans whose duty it is to expel all In-
trudine elements from the system ne
inorganic salts so often founa IN Mat, 80
have a very unfavorable effect IN the
animal economy, as the elements iioI
being wanted in the system nave 70 pe
cast out through the excretorleS' cAu9-
ing in their passage out, diseases OI th9
kidney and the skin, and 1T is lounu
that gravelly deposits and eruptlons OF
the skin are frequent in proportion TO
the inorganic substances touho III ehe
water habitually used
That shuts the door against So-callea
mineral water, against contafnInSate9ui S e9i
we'll spring and river water, anu Sn af
+he fancy compound waters palmed OH
on the world as medicinal and recon-
nended by their vendors as health
They are health destroy
THAT answers fully the question of
what water is best to drinE-the purer
+he better With only oxygen ana ny
droeen in the combine, water IS Mt TOT
-1e,9 o.. Gods to drink And conversely,
the more drugs of any kind a water
contains the more dangerous 1T is 10
health.
some of the special senses and functions
'of that body which one of old has said
is s'fearfully and wonderfully made
We must all be kept warm. In or
der. 70 live at all there must be steady !
and euuable temperature maintained IN
the body at all times, from birth TO
daath. and that temperature must
SaI-v but(sIightIy from 9S15 degrees. A
drop of or 6 degrees is fatal and two