How to bathe : a family guide for the use of water in preserving health and treating disease / by E.P. Miller.

  • Eli Peck Miller
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: How to bathe : a family guide for the use of water in preserving health and treating disease / by E.P. Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    EFFECTS OF WATER. The human body is constantly undergoing changes. We are not the same to-day that we were yesterday. To-morrow will find us different from to-day. The tissues that supply power for the use of our muscles and brains to-day, will to-morrow become useless and worn-out material. Every action, every thought, feeling, or emotion consumes the vital force of certain particles of body and brain, rendering them useless, and as dead matter they are taken into the circulation and expelled from the body through the skin, the bowels, the kidneys, and the lungs. New tissues are constantly being formed to supply the place of this dead matter, the materials for which are obtained from the blood, and have been pro- duced by the digestion of fresh supplies of food. The process of tissue formation is called assimilation. Water is the agent by means of which ouj? food is digested, and the nutrient por- tion carried to the various parts of the body, for the formation of new tissues. A daily supply of pure water, wholesome food, and fresh air, with proper exercise, is indispensable to keep the body in a healthy condition. It is equally important that the worn-out materia] and waste matter should be removed from the body as fast as it accumulates. If our stoves or grates become choked with ashes and cinders the fires burn dimly, and though we may add fresh supplies of fuel and admit plenty of air, yet if the used-up materials are not removed the fires soon cease to burn. So with our bodies; if the worn-out tissues and waste materials are not daily removed, their efiect upon the system is poisonous, for they interfere with the functions of the organs, produce disease, and eventually destroy life. Water is the medium of conveyance by which the worn-out tissues are gotten rid of. No other material can supply its place or do its work. Diseases arise from one of four causes: either by those poisons which are taken into the body from without; by the
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