58

WATER, FERMENTED LIQUORS, &c.

reason to believe it is owing to the minerals in the mountainsthrough which the waters pass.*

Water, &c. — When water is impregnated with foreign bodies,it generally appears by its weight, colour, taste, smell, heat or someother sensible quality. Our business, therefore, is to choose suchwater, for common use, as is lightest, and without any particularcolour, taste, or smell. Inmost places of Britain the inhabitantshave it in their power to make choice of their water, and few thingswould contribute more to health than a due attention to this arti-cle. But mere indolence often induces people to make use of thewater that is nearest to them, without considering its qualities.

Before water is brought into great towns, the strictest attentionought to be paid to its qualifies, as many diseases may be occa-sioned or aggravated by bad water ; and when once it has beenprocured at a great expense, peopre are unwilling to give it up.

The common methods of rendering water clear by filtration ; orsoft, by exposing it to the sun and air, &c. are so generally knownthat it is unnecessary to spend time in explaining them. Weshall only, in general, advise all to avoid waters which stagnatelong in small lakes, ponds, or the like, as such waters often becomeputrid, by the corruption of animal and vegetable bodies withwhich they abound. Even cattle frequently suffer by drinking, indry seasons, water which has stood long in small reservoirs, with-out being supplied by spring-s, or freshened with showers. Allwells ought to be kept clean, and to have a free oommnnication withthe air.

Fermented liquors, &.c. — Notwithstanding fermented liquorshave been exclaimed against by many writers, they still continueto be the common drink of almost every person who can affordthem ; we shall rather endeavour to assist people in the choice ofthese liqours, than pretend to condemn what custom has so firmlyestablished. It is not the moderate use of sound fermented liquorswhich hurts mankind : it is excess, and using such as are ill-pre-pared or vitiated.

Fermented liquors, which are too strong, hurt digestion ; andthe body is so far from being strengthened by them, that it is weak-ened and relaxed. Many imagine that hard labour could not besupported without drinking strong liquors ; this is a very errone-ous notion. Men who never taste strong liquors are not only ableto endure more fatigue, but also live much longer, than those whouse them daily. But suppose strong liquors did enable a man todo more work, they must nevertheless waste the powers of life,and occasion premature old age. They keep up a constant fever,which exhausts the spirits, inflames the blood, and disposes thebody to numberless diseases.

But fermented liquors may be too weak as well as too strong :

* This long controverted opinion, very early broached by Dr. Buchan, relative to thecause of these tumours, {bronchocele or goitres, &c.) among the inhabitants of certainmountainous districts, is now greatly strengthened, in fact corroborated, by a curioushistory of the disease, in a letter from Dr. Alexander Coventry, President of the Medi-cal Society of the state of New York, to the editors of the New York Medical andPhysical Journal for June, 1824. No. 10. See also "New Domestic Medical Man*cal," under Bronchocele.