The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-01-28
TWO QUARTS OF WATER A DAY.
DIR. w. Il. q. Latson Says This is an
inexpensive Way in Which to
Keep In Perfect Health.

Three-quarters of the earth's sur
face is covered by water The body
of a man is about four-fifths water.
Even your teeth, the hardest and
densest tissue of the body, contain
about four per cent. of water. The
bones contain from eleven to four
teen per cent. of water; the muscles
are three-quarters water. The
blood varies from four-fifths to
seven-eighths water. Water makes
up ninety-seven per cent. of the
gastric juice, ninety-eight per cent.
of the perspiration and ninety-nine
per cent. of the saliva.
The vital processes are carried on
very largely by means of water. As
one authority has expressed it
Water is very important food ele-
ment, as all the physiologic changes
take place in a watery solution.
Water is the medium through which
the body is nourished." That is to
say, digestion, circulation, assimila-
tion--all these are possible only as
a result of the presence of water in
the body without food a man can
exist sixty, seventy or eighty days,
as has been demonstrated by ex-
perience, but if deprived of water
for five or six days he dies.
In the prevention and treatment
of disease the elimination of waste
is by far the most important factor
in many diseases it is only neces-
sary to increase elimination in order
to cure the case Disease, as a rule,
is merely an effort on the part of
the body to rid itself of impurities
To secure proper elimination the
most important measure is the free
drinking of pure water, water which
shall wash the system as water
poured through a sponge would
cleanse it of all its impurities.
There are very few people who
drink enough water to insure the
elimination of the poisons which the
body is constantly making. For the
removal of these poisons the two
or three glasses of water daily which
many people drink is absurdly in
adequate.
Fluids such as tea, coffee, wine,
beer, milk and so on will not act
upon the system in the same way.
In the first place, all such fluids,
with the exception of milk, contain
impurities, if not actual poisons.
Coffee contains caffein, tea contains
them, wine and beer contain alcohol.
Not only, therefore, do they poison
the system and disturb the opera
tion of the vital organs, but they
impose upon certain organs the adj
ded task of separating the solid
from the fluid matters before the
liquid can be used by the system.
1t must be understood that the
only liquid which the body can use
in it's activities is water, and that
other fluids taken are useful only
because they contain water which
may be filtered out by the appropri-
ate organs. This act of filtration,
however, imposes a certain strain
upon the system-a strain which
in many cases leads to direct and in
durable disease.
An insufficient supply of water in
the system is one of the most fire.
quent and far reaching causes of
disease. AS a practical physician,
the writer has found that in the vast
majority of cases, lack of fluid in the
body was an important factor in the
causation and maintenance of the
patients disorder. And in every
day practice it has become a routine
measure to prescribe an increase in
the quantity of water taken.
Lack of water is nearly always a
factor in the production of such
disorders as Indigestion, constipa-
ton, rheumatism, gout, catarrh and
biliousness. In constipation especi-
ally the free drinking of water is
often the only treatment needed for
complete cure. Water is better
than any combination of drugs-bet-
ter than pills or other concoctions,
which act only by irritating the del
icate membranes of the stomach.
In indigestion the difficulty is
generally due to the insufficient
supply of gastric juice, combined