Advice on the care of the health ; with remarks on the present state of hygiology ; showing the necessity for the adoption of public sanatory measures ; on the causes and prevention of disease ; and on air, exercise, diet, bathing, etc / [John Harrison Curtis].

  • Curtis, John Harrison, 1778-approximately 1860
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Advice on the care of the health ; with remarks on the present state of hygiology ; showing the necessity for the adoption of public sanatory measures ; on the causes and prevention of disease ; and on air, exercise, diet, bathing, etc / [John Harrison Curtis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The accompanying- plate represents the external appearance of the Artesian Well of Grenelle. The water ascends from the earth in a tube 112 feet high, and about nine inches in diameter. It issues from this tube warm and limpid. It first falls into a circular cistern, supported on a platform about ten feet square. This cistern is pierced with eighty round holes of about an inch in diameter, which are not all full, it is true, but of which sixty become full, when the other twenty are stopped up. The water on issuing from the pierced cistern— which maybe compared to the sieve of the Danaides—at once enters a descending tube, equal in length and diameter to the ascending one. This tube constantly full, or, as they say at Grenelle, always charged, descends, to reach, under ground, the origin of the con- duit, which distributes the water in the city. Lastly, a third tube receives, also upon the platform, the over supply of water, that is, what the supplying tube cannot itself receive for the pur- pose of discharging it, when the taps of the vessels for the recep- tion of water in the city are not open. It may, perhaps, be objected to the proposal to supply London with water by means of Artesian wells, that they would not furnish a sufficient supply, or that it would not be permanent. But as to the first objection, there need be no limit to the number of Artesian wells, for it appears that the formation of several in close proximity to one another, does not diminish the supply of water furnished by each. To the second objection, I would reply in the words of the author already quoted : “ Rain being the only source of Ar- tesian springs, we may be certain that they will never become dry so long as rain shall continue to fall, and so long as rain shall form streams which flow over the sandy or chalky soil, from which these springs derive their supplies.” In confirmation of this, M. Rey refers to several ancient Artesian wells, which have for many years yielded an undiminished quantity of water, and, among them, to the three Artesian wells of Solomon, in the plain of Tyr, spoken of by M. de Lamartine, which throw out, up to this very day, the same quantity as at their formation, and continue to be the chief sources of the supply of water to this ancient and cele- brated city. It must be added that the purest water, if conveyed by lead pipes, or received into lead cisterns, cannot possibly be wholesome; and, in fact, the purer the water the greater is the danger.* Fil- tering does not purify water, as it can only remove the im- purities which are mechanically suspended in it, and not such as are in a state of solution. When water comes fresh into cisterns only two or three times a week, as is the case with the New * Vide Mr. Phillip’s evidence before the committee of the House of Commons. An instance of the injurious effects of drinking water impreg- nated with lead, came before the public a short time ago, in the case of the Queen’s hounds at Windsor.