A Text-Book of Hygiene (Electronic book text)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER II. WATER. Physiologists teach that nearly two-thirds of the tissue of the animal body consists of water. Inasmuch as this water is constantly being lost by evaporation from the skin, exhalation by the lungs, and excretion through various organs, it is evident that the loss must- be constantly supplied if the functions of life shall be properly performed. It appears probable that certain diseases are at times spread through the agency of insufficient or impure drinking water. It is therefore a matter of very great importance to have a definite notion of what constitutes a pure and sufficient supply of water, and how- best to secure it; to be able to detect its conditions of purity and impurity, and to know how to maintain the former, and avoid the latter. It will be necessary to consider in detail, therefore, the quantity of water required by each individual for the maintenance of health, the sources whence water is obtained, how it shall be collected and stored to the best advantage, the impurities likely to be contained in it, and the methods of keeping it pure, or of purifying it when it has become polluted or vitiated in any manner. THE QUANTITY OF WATER REQUIRED BY HUMAN BEINGS. Dr. Parkes, after a number of experiments, concluded that a man of the English middle class, ' who may be taken as a fair type of a cleanly man belonging to a fairly cleanly household' uses about twelve gallons of water per day. This covers all the water needed, including a daily sponge bath. Dr. DeChaumont estimates* that sixteen gallons should be the daily allowance. By order of the British War Department, 15 gallons of water are allowed to each soldier daily. In very many instances, this quantity cannot be furnished, but in such cases there necessarily results some deficiency in cleanliness. It is probab...