The record-union., 1899-03-21
IS PURE WATER POISON?
We Are Assured It Is by DR..
Hoppe.

We are assured by DR.. Hoppe in the
'Deutsche Medicinische Wochen-
schrift" that chemically pure water is
actually poisonous, on account OF It's
action as a solvent of the salts from the
animal tissues Physicians who pre-
scribe distilled water for their patients
are thus, according to this authority,
doing them actual injury, while those
who give mineral waters are acting on
correct principles. since these contain
already so much salt that they can not
absorb any more. We Quote portions
of an abstract of DIR. Koppe's article in
1.-The National Druggist:
by chemically pure water we usu-
ally understand perfectly fresh, distilled
water, whose behavior and properties
are we'll understood. 1t withdraws the
salts from the animal tissues and
causes the latter to swell or initiate.
Isolated living organic elements, cells,
and all unicellular organisms are de-
stroyed in distilled water-they die,
since they become engorged therein.
They lose the faculty, upon which life
depends, of retaining their salts and
other soluble cell constituents, and con-
SeQutHlly lntSS are diiOWON ~ NHAA 49,
throughout the water.
Distilled water is. therefore, dan
gerous protoplasmic poison. The same
poisonous effects must occur whenever
distilled water is drunk. The sense OF
taste is the first to protest against the
use of this substance. A mouthful of
distilled water, taken by inadvertence,
will be spit out regularly. The
local poisonous effect of distilled water
makes itself known by all the
symptoms of a catarrh of the stomach
on a small scale.
"The harmfulness of the process, so
much resorted to to-day, of washing out
the stomach with distilled water, is
acknowledged, and we find the physi-
clans who formerly used that agent are
now turning to the physiological solu-
ton of cooking SALT or water with a
little salt or the mineral waters recon-
mended for the purpose. The poison
Gus nature of absolutely pure water
would surely have been recognized and
felt long since, were it not that it's eff
fects in their most marked form, can
selcom occur, for through train of
circumstances. absolutely pure water
Cdu rarely De lOOllO. 1 liz OlQlildly QlS-
titled water. even when freshly distilled,
is not really absolutely pure, while that
used in the laboratories and clinics is
generally stale, has been kept stand
ing in open vessels, generally in rooms
where chemicals of every sort abound
and whose gases and effluvia are taken
up by the water.
This poisonous action of pure water
is, according to DR.. Hoppe, responsible
for some of the unexplained effects of
administering ice to invalids. He says:
Patients with hitherto perfectly
healthy stcmachs, who, after operations
are for any reason allowed to swallow
ice pills. snot infrequently con-
tract catarrah of the stomach. There
are well-known sequelae of the use OF
ice, but up to the present no reasona-
BILE hypothesis has been offered as to
the etiology of the same. 1t has been
charged it is true, to the 'bacteriologi-
cal contents of the ice. but exanina-
ton of the latter has demonstrated il
to be almost free from bacteria such as
would account for the phenomena
though otherwise frequently containing
bacteria. AS a remedy our clinicians
say we must use only artificial ice, made
from distilled water. Well, it is posi-
BILE that artificial ice may be better
borne than the natural, but it is not