Dehydration

“ The fact that the living body which our food is building up and renewing contains about eighty per cent of water, some of it combined, and some of it uncombined, has a notable bearing on the question. We may yet learn that hydration and dehydration have more to do with the vital functions than has hitherto been supposed.
The following are the ingredients used by Rumford in "Soup No. 1":
This amounts to 4221200, or a trifle more than one third, of a penny for each dinner of this No. 1 soup. ”

“ Cold water, as a beverage, fortifies the stomach and intestines, by clearing them of the bad juices they contain: favours the generation of new juices, and mixes with the blood by absorption. It spreads itself quickly through all the organs, attenuates, purifies, and dissolves the sharp or thick humours, and discharges them by means of perspiration and urine. Considered as a dietetic for slight indispositions, bad digestions, and generally in all cases of disease for which the faculty recommend aperients or mineral waters, it cannot be too highly appreciated. ”

“ Water is necessary, not only for digestion, nutrition, and all functional processes of life, but it is indispensable as a menstruum for medicinal substances. It is a necessary agent in depuration, or the process of purifying the animal economy, for it dissolves and holds in solution deleterious matter, which in this state may be expelled from the body. In fevers, water is necessary to quench the thirst, promote absorption, and incite the skin and kidneys to action. Its temperature may be varied according to requirements. Diluents are the vehicles for introducing medicine into the system. ”

“ We are accustomed to take most of the water we drink with our meals; not taking any at meals may largely decrease the amount of fluid in the body, which has many bad effects. As shown by Pawlow, and also by Bickel, more stomach juice is secreted when the body contains more fluid. Then drinking a certain amount of water at meals may assist in the absorption of the food. There is also the great advantage that by the aid of fluids the end-products of nitrogenous matters, which have toxic actions, may be more easily eliminated from the body than with a dry diet. ”

“ When the cells lining that region become deficient in moisture the sense is aroused. The drying may occur from without or from within. When it occurs from without, as in sleeping with the mouth open, relief can usually be obtained by merely swallowing saliva copiously. The same treatment helps for the moment when the lack of moisture is due to deficiency in the amount in the body, but in this latter case no permanent relief can be had except by the taking of water. When the amount in the body falls below the proper level no comfort can be had until the loss has been made good. ”

“ Physiologists declare that water is formed in the body by a direct union of oxygen and hydrogen, but those who have cultivated the drink-little habit need not hope to find an excuse for themselves in this fact: chronic ill-health betrays them. Water in organic relations with the body never exists uncombined with inorganic salts (especially sodium chloride) in any of the fluids, semi-solids, or solids of the body. It enters into the constitution of the tissues, not as pure water, but always in connection with inorganic salts. ”

“ In the tropics 21nothing is more important than pure water.
There is a great deal of water in the body. In fact, three fourths of the body is made up of water. It is in the blood, in the muscles, and in the bones. There is even some water in the enamel of the teeth, which is the hardest substance in the whole body. The digestive juices, the saliva, and the different intestinal juices, all help to dissolve some part of the food which we take. To obtain this power to dissolve the food, they depend upon water.
When a man is thirsty, it seems to him that his throat is dry. ”

“ The breath is loaded with carbonic acid and other impurities; the perspiration is loaded with all that makes it differ from pure water; the urine, especially, is loaded with waste separated from the blood and tissues of the body. The space, so to speak, left vacant by all this washing away of waste matter makes its emptiness felt by a call upon the stomach to furnish fresh material. Some will say that the hot water merely passes off by the kidneys without entering the circulation at all. This is impossible, and facts, patent to everyone, demonstrate that they are in error. ”

“ They will not, however, any more than red paint will act as an antidote to poor health by painting the cheeks with it. Water, hot water, especially when used plentifully, is the only solvent of dirt.
Very few realize how essential water is to digestion and to the digestive canal after the process of digestion is completed; and that it has physiological effects on the system generally is less widely known. There exists a great natural demand for water to carry on the normal functions of the system ”

“ Either use cold towels or give hot water as above, as the case demands. When it is brought into something like a natural state of feeling, you may then give food. The hot water will often not only prepare the stomach, but will start the flow of saliva in the mouth, and that even when the cooling cloth has failed to do so.
A medical man will, at times, forbid water, however thirsty the patient may be. He is not unlikely to be labouring under a serious mistake. It may be just the want of water which is causing the very symptoms which he thinks to cure by withholding it. ”

“ It has been estimated that an average-sized adult loses by means of the lungs, skin, and kidneys about eighty ounces of water every twenty-four hours. To restore this loss about four pints must be taken daily. About one pint of this is obtained from the food we eat, the remaining three pints being taken as drink. One of the best ways of supplying water to the body is by drinking it in its pure state, when its solvent properties can be completely utilized. The amount of water consumed depends largely upon the amount of work performed by the body, and upon the temperature. ”

“ In the mouth the water was almost instantly brought to body-temperature and its coolness was very agreeable to all the senses. I now rarely take any water except in very hot weather when perspiration is active and then only enough to quench thirst, excess giving discomfort and necessitating more perspiration. Water injures digestion by being taken with meals only because it is used to wash down food not yet prepared for the stomach. It is the unfit food that is carried down by it and not the water that does the harm. ”

“ You can see now why you shouldn't take large doses of soda or other alkalies, just because you feel a little uncomfortable after eating. They will make your stomach less {15}acid and perhaps relieve the discomfort, but they stop or slow down digestion. Neither is it well to swallow large quantities of ice-water, or other very cold drinks, at meal times, or during the process of digestion. As digestion is largely getting the food dissolved in water, the drinking of moderate quantities of water, or other fluids, at meals is not only no hindrance, but rather a help in the process. ”

“ The slowly sipping of a single goblet of water will do more to alleviate thirst than the sudden gulping down of a gallon. It is more frequently the dryness of the mouth, during hot weather, than the want of the system, which calls for the supply of fluid. When larger quantities, moreover, are poured into the stomach than are required, that organ becomes oppressed mechanically by the distention, and the digestion is consequently weakened. ”

“ Water is subtracted in such amounts that the body dries; even the skin becomes dry, and the tongue may cleave to the roof of the mouth. Furthermore, much [Pg 25] otherwise available food energy is lost with sugar in the urine. As much as a pound of sugar may be passed in a day. Consequently, the tissues starve in the midst of plenty. The appetite, therefore, is sharpened, but the more the patient eats, the greater becomes the wastage of food energy, and the more severe the symptoms. ”

“ In spite of all the care that we may take, we find it so difficult to keep water perfectly pure. It may have, for instance salt dissolved in it, or bits of grass and other decaying matter. Rain water is, of course, the purest, but, before it reaches us, it generally becomes impure by the absorption of the floating matter in the atmosphere. Perfectly pure water has a most beneficial effect on the system; hence doctors administer distilled water to their patients. Those who are suffering from constipation are appreciably benefitted by the use of distilled water. ”

“ The human body is constantly throwing off water. A large portion is lost by evaporation from the skin, upon which it is poured out by millions of what might be termed little sewer pipes or sweat ducts, for the purpose of washing away impurities from the system. The kidneys remove a considerable quantity, bearing with it poisonous elements in solution, the product of various vital activities. In other ways water is removed from the body, to the amount of about five pints in twenty-four hours. ”

“ When it is remembered that nearly two thirds of the substance, by weight, of the human body is in the form of water, included in the composition of the various tissues, the importance of using water in liberal quantities internally becomes at once apparent. The most eminent physiologists have computed that, in order to supply the losses by excretions and evaporation taking place in the human body, it is necessary to drink from a half to one gallon of water daily. This, too, in addition to the water contained in the beverages, such as tea, coffee, etc., which are in common use. ”

“ Distilled water is the nearest approach to pure water obtainable, and it is said by physicians that such water is not desirable as a habitual and constant beverage. The human body requires certain mineral salts particularly for the bones and muscles, and while these salts are provided in a large measure by food, a number are also furnished [Pg 132] by drinking water. On the other hand, a wonderful natural process is accomplished by distilled or approximately pure water in that the water tends to dissolve, to add to itself, and to carry away whatever excess of solids may exist in the body. ”

“ Herein lies the great secret of hydropathy: by its modes of application, morbid humours are drawn to the surface and eliminated, the body is cooled, and the skin put into a state to perform its indispensable duty. In internal inflammations, the morbid heat from the internal skin or mucous membrane is drawn off by the application of cold and irritation to the surface, and the disease subdued without charging the stomach with anything but pure spring water, which in contradistinction to drugs, produces the most salubrious effects. ”

“ Part of the waste that comes from our body cells is either watery, or easily dissolved in water; and this is carried in the {132}blood to a special set of filter organs—the liver and the kidneys—and poured out of the body as the urine. Another part of it, when circulating through the skin, is passed off in the form of that watery vapor which we call perspiration, or sweat. But part of the waste can be got rid of only by burning, and what we call burning is another name for combining with oxygen, or to use one word—oxidation ”

“ The liquid employed as the digestive solvent is water. The different nutrients dissolve in water, mixing with it to form a solution which is then passed into the body proper.
Digestion not a Simple Process.—Digestion is by no means a simple process, such, for instance, as the dissolving of salt or sugar in water. These, being soluble in water, dissolve at once on being mixed with a sufficient amount of this liquid. The majority of the nutrients, however, are insoluble in water and are unaffected by it when acting alone. Fats, starch, and most of the proteids do not dissolve in water. ”

“ The mucous juices are dissolved like every other fluid; for wherever there is atmospheric air, heat and moisture, there is evaporation. Here this evaporation is even a means which nature employs to rid herself, as I have said, of the mucous juices. If they are too abundant, as in a cold, then the quantity of air which serves as a vehicle to them, not increasing in proportion, it is necessary that there should be another mode of evacuation; this is expectoration which compensates for what the air cannot remove by solution. ”

“ In a very warm day in August an average man who is at work will perspire from two to six quarts of water a day. Where is it all coming from if you don’t drink it? Many poisons generated by the body are exuded through the pores of the skin in perspiration. Many persons think they are not perspiring unless they can see beads of water on the skin. But we perspire at all times, waking and sleeping, and we do not see it because it evaporates immediately. It is almost impossible to drink too much water. ”

“ About twelve ordinary size tumblers of water a day are generally drunk whilst under the treatment; instances occur where that number is increased to twenty, and even thirty glasses, but such are very rare.
At the beginning it is difficult to drink so much water; but by degrees we become accustomed to it. All the operations of the cure lead to the elimination of heat, which naturally causes thirst. Some persons on first drinking water feel sick, or have diarrhoea, which proves that the stomach is not in a healthy state. ”

“ This produces a temporary increase of certain excretions, augmented diuresis, and a quantitative increase of urea, of chloride of sodium, and of phosphoric and sulphuric acids in the urine. Both the sensible and the insensible perspirations are augmented. A draught of cold water undoubtedly stimulates the peristaltic action of the intestines. On the whole water slightly warm is best borne by the stomach, and is more easily absorbed by it than cold water; and warm waters are more useful than cold ones when there is much gastric irritability. ”