CHAPTER II.

MORE ABOUT WATER :--WATER IN SUSPICIOUS NEIGHBOURHOODS; LEADEN PIPING; BREAD; BRAN; STARCH A HEAT-FORMING FOOD; FERMENTATION; ALUM; WHOLE-MEAL BREAD; AERATED BREAD; OATMEAL; PHOS

PHATES.

WATER is obtained from many sources, and of course the first great source of this "stay of life" is the Ocean, which collects to its vast bosom all the waters of the earth. But then in its natural state we cannot drink this water, on account of the saline matter it contains; though be it remembered, the water of different portions of the sea, and that of salt inland lakes, varies very much in composition, as regards saline ingredient. Of course, rainwater is the purest water we can have; for it is the first condensed water, after it has passed from the ocean to the atmosphere; but its use is liable to many objections, arising from its inevitable contaminations in the process of collection. It washes our smoky roofs, trickles down from chimneys, and runs through dirty spouting, ere it reaches the cistern, when perhaps some of its impurities may settle to the bottom; but filtered, there is no better, purer water to be had for love or money.

Next to rain-water comes riverwater, then lake-water; after these common spring-waters, then mineral springs, then sea-water!-the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azof being only brackish; then the great ocean, the saline particles of which are about 4 per cent.; then the

Mediterranean; then the Caspian and Aral Lakes; then the Dead Sea, containing 20 per cent. of saline matter, and lastly the lakes of Elton and Urumiali, the former containing 29 per cent. and the latter not exactly stated, but declared on good authority, to far exceed in salt and iodine, the Dead Sea waters.

But for common use we are limited to rain-water, river-water, and spring or well-water, and it is about spring-water that our chief solicitudes arise. Water is a most important element in our "daily food," since, as said before, there would be no carrying of food into the system but for the agency of water. Now, the most popular waters are not the purest, for surface well-waters are generally clearer, cooler, and more sparkling than those of deep wells. sparkling of water arises from the carbonic acid gas it contains, and generally this gas is derived from the decomposition of animal and vegetable matter; and their cooling taste is not less suspicious as it proceeds from the presence of certain salts, which are never formed, but from the decomposition of organic

matter.

The

This is very easily understoodthe soil, especially a gravel soil, is one great percolator; percolating. be it observed, not only water, but drains, sewers, and those dreadful things called cesspools, or dumbwells. What may be in these drains and sewers, we shudder to examine, but gradually it mixes with the surface-waters, and forms carbonic-acid gas. You have all

heard or read Dr. Lankester's account of the celebrated "Broadstreet Pump," which was a very Sampson among pumps and killed five-hundred people in a week. The Cholera had broken out in the neighbourhood, and some learned doctors accused this wicked pump of having done the mischief. Dr. Lankester was appointed to prove the truth of this dreadful allegation, and he accordingly tested the water, and caused the state of the well to be investigated, and found out that the said well had been for some time in communication with the cesspool of a neighbouring house. A true bill was therefore found against the offender, and the pump in Broad-street, Golden-square, has been immortalized for what it did in 1851. I myself heard Dr. Lankester assert that several persons living at a distance from the pump died of Cholera, and were discovered to have had its water sent them regularly for consumption.

Wells near grave-yards should always be eschewed, and those in the vicinity of farm-yards are not much better. I know myself of two cases, where death and terrible illness were traced back to the daily drinking of water near a grave-yard. In the one case a very virulent fever broke out in the family, and carried several children to the very place whence the mischief had been derived; in the other, all were stricken with Diphtheria, and some lives were saved with difficulty, one being sacrificed to the fatal malady.

Avoid, then, wells in such suspicious propinquities, and as drains are everywhere, and you can hardly be quite certain that the limpid fluid sparkling in your glass is really pure and wholesome, by all means filter what you drink, and you are safe!

Then those who do not consume well-water, are dependent on what we call 'town-water," laid on in pipes supplied from rivers or from reservoirs. This is filtered certainly, but not sufficiently, and it contracts certain impurities in passing on its way; it is the safer plan to

Let

filter this, but above all things beware of lead contaminations! If you have leaden piping to convey your water, let no one drink of that water the first thing in the morning, for that which has lain all night acting on the lead, will certainly contain deleterious qualities. at least a bucket-full of water be allowed to run away, then you are certain of a fresh supply, which has not been lying in the pipes for many hours. The same precaution should be observed whenever any length of time has passed without water being drawn. Νο Waterworks Company," I suppose, would now lay down lead-piping, but then lead is employed too frequently for the smaller tubing, which carries the water from the main to individual houses; if your supply-pipe then be leaden, in the name of Common Sense, never take into your body the first pint or two you draw, and in the morning let a bucket-full escape before you fill your kettle! But above all things filter! filter! FILTER!!

When the world shall be wiser and more philanthropic, and be careful to supply pure water to the public, you may perhaps trust this important matter to your landlord, or to certain companies, but till then, I beg you FILTER!

And of this filtered water be not chary; but drink it often, the first thing in the morning when you leave your bed, at noon, at night before you go to rest, and whenever you are thirsty. Nature will quickly tell you if you drink too much; but she may be some time before she tells you that you drink too little, and even then you may not understand her language. Mr. Stultus, I dare say, would never comprehend the ancient dame, but would take her promptings as indications of something to be redressed by Dinner Pills," "Aperients, "Tonics," and an extra dose of "Bitter Beer."

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So much for Water, and now we come to BREAD, "the staff of life!"

The bread we eat may be taken as the type of our vegetable food; and in divers forms, and in various

kinds it is consumed by man in all parts of the globe. Wheaten bread is that with which we, in this country, are most familiar. When the grain is crushed and sifted, it is separated into two parts, the bran and the flour. The bran you know is the outside, the harder part of the grain, which does not crush readily, and when it does crush, darkens the flour materially; hence BROWN bread, made of flour, with bran combined in certain quantities. The bran being sifted out is used for feeding horses, pigs, and other animals, and even for manure; yet this part of the grain is most nutritious. The nutritive quality of any kind of grain depends chiefly on the proportion of gluten it contains, and the proportions of this in the whole grain, in bran, and in fine flour, are respectively very nearly these:

skins) Fine flour

...........

Whole grain, per cent. of gluten...12 Whole bran (outer and inner ...14 to 18 ........10 By sifting out the bran we render the meal less nutritious, and when we see besides that the bran is rarely less, and sometimes more than one fourth of the grain, it must be confessed that this separation is effected to the loss of a great deal of wholesome human food. Bread made from the whole meal is therefore more nutritious and more economical, and many persons find it so salutary a food that they eat it always rather than the fine white loaf more commonly and erroneously preferred. Bread contains also a great deal of starch, a dried oatcake as much as 70 per cent, and regular wheaten bread is made up of 48 per cent, of water, 57 gluten, and 46 starch. Now starch, not of course as it is used in laundries, but as it exists in plants, is a Heatforming food, and as such requisite to our animal well-being. Every 162lbs of natural starch contains 72lbs of charcoal; and here then is the source of its heating power, and whenever we eat starch in sago, arrowroot, and similar commodities, we take in so much actual fuel; and as we heap charcoal, or

coal on a fire, we add starch to the body to keep up our animal fire; carbonic acid-gas, which we throw off continually, being the result.

But carbon in its pure state cannot be digested, and therefore cannot mingle with the blood; how then is the charcoal in the starch we eat to be transferred to the blood and to the tissues of the body? Nature herself works out this problem every hour; the fact being that the starch itself is dissolved by the action of the saliva and the gastric juices of the stomach, and converted into sugar, and so gets into the blood. Starch, as you all know, has the power of combining with water at a high temperature, and forming a thick gelatinous mass, it being the starch in arrowroot and flour that, heated to a certain point, becomes consistent. Were it not for this property, there would be no pudding making. The gluten then of bread, and other farinaceous foods, is required directly to build up the substance of the body; but the starch and sugar are converted into carbonic acid and water, in order that the heat of the animal may be kept up.

When a little yeast is added to the flour, which is mixed with water into dough, and the dough placed for an hour or two in a Warm atmosphere it begins to rise!—that is, it ferments, and swells, and increases in bulk. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas are disengaged in this process, and the mass is thereby rendered light and porous. Heavy bread you know is close in texture, and does not show the cells wherein the gas is formed.

When first put into the oven, the fermentation and swelling are increased by the higher temperature; but at a certain point the fermentation is suddenly arrested, and the mass fixed by the after baking, in the form it had already taken.

This is why too hot an oven makes heavy bread and cakes, even when the cook has entirely done her part. For if the dough attain the temperature at which fermentation ceases, very quickly, it is manifest that it will bake, and form

a crust before the rising or swelling is complete. The small cavities which you find in new bread are produced when the dough is soft, by the bubbles of gas generated by the fermentation. The effect of the action of the yeast is also to change part of the Starch of the flour into sugar, and then convert this sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid. The alcohol escapes, for the most part, during the baking, and is dissipated in the oven.

Alum is frequently introduced into bakers' bread, for the purpose of whitening it. Now, alum does not exist among the compounds that are necessary to our existence; it is, therefore, a foreign subject, one that has no business in the system, and is decidedly pernicious. But if people will clamour for such very delicate-looking bread, they must expect the adulteration of alum; it is not in the nature of pure wholesome flour and yeast to become so very fine and white. A very conscientious baker assured me that it was impossible to bring loaves to the appearance demanded by some of his customers, without the admixture of a little alum. "But,"

said he, "I can make a far more wholesome and nutritious bread, without a particle of alum; only it will not look so nice!"

A French chemist has lately announced, that the bran of wheat, besides the nutritious quality it derives from the large percentage of gluten it contains, has also the property of dissolving the flour, or bread, with which it is mixed, and of rendering it more easily digestible in the stomach. "It contains," says he, a peculiar species of ferment, which in the presence of water, and aided by the heat of the oven in baking, and of the stomach during digestion, gradually converts the starch of the bread into sugar." And it is to this property, as well as to the nourishment it yields, that some of its wholesome qualities are to be ascribed. Certainly, no family should banish whole-meal bread from its daily board; at least let some be eaten in alternation with the white, and oftentimes adulterated bread.

Then again arises the question, whether fermented or unfermented bread be the most wholesome? Certainly many people flourish well on unfermented bread, as the Indians, and our neighbours on the other side the Tweed, who, many of them, eat only oaten-cake, which never is fermented; because oatmeal, ricemeal, maize and millet, are inca pable of fermentation. Wheat only, of all farinaceous foods will make fermented bread. Well, probably you like fermented bread the best, and as a general rule, if genuine, it will be nourishing and wholesome.

But there are persons upon whom fermented bread acts most injuriously; they cannot take starch, sugar, or glucose, as chemists call it, because their stomachs produce compounds, which hastily break up the glucose, and convert it into acid. Such people are obliged to eschew new soft bread, and take dry toast, and plain biscuits are preferred by them to any kind of bread, except it be that which is made by Dr. Dauglish's patent, and known to the public as aërated bread.

This bread is formed-I take the authority of Dr. Lankester-" by making the flour into dough with water containing carbonic-acid gas in solution." And this process is effected by a sort of soda-water apparatus, or gazogene; a quantity of water charged with carbonic acid being injected into a cylinder containing the flour, and then thoroughly mixed up with it. This is done by the aid of steam in the course of a few minutes, and the dough running out of the cylinder by a little valve, into tin cases, is carried to the oven and baked, during which process the carbonic acid is expelled, and the bread becomes vesiculated, that is, thrown into vesicles or holes, caused by the expansion of the gas in making its escape. Here you have no handling, no kneading, no waiting for the oven, as happens in the ordinary manufacture of the staff of life; the whole process is completed, ready for baking, in twenty or five and twenty minutes at the utmost, whereas, common bread has some

times to stand "to rise" for many hours, nine or twelve occasionally, and involves a great expenditure of hunan labour. From the incresing number of establishments for the making of aërated bread, I should say it is becoming more appreciated by the public, and to persons of certain tendencies, I have no doubt it is a boon; but in cases of ordinary digestions, I think the regular yeast-made bread, not too fine, is best for family use. Why not always have brown bread as well as white upon your table? The expense would not be more than if you ate entirely of the usual bread; and certainly your health would be improved and your vigour much increased. The quantity of water which a wellbaked wheaten loaf contains, amounts, on an average, to 45 or 46 per cent. Therefore, the bread we eat is nearly one half water, and is in fact both meat and drink together.

OATS are a favourite food in England for horses, and we think but little of the meal of oats, as a staple article of our daily food. But the Scotch we know, especially the poorer sort, eat little else by way of bread; and even in our own border-counties, taking in the north of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the labouring population exist principally on oaten-cake, and a very fine and stalwart race they are, generally speaking! Scotch oatmeal seems to be nearly akin to the bran of English wheat in its composition, since it contains, according to Professor Johnston, 14 per cent. of water, precisely the same quantity of gluten, viz., 18 per cent., the same of fat, 6 per cent., and only one less of starch, viz., 62, while bran has 63 per cent.

It is said that oatmeal used as sole food, without milk or other animal diet, produces irritability of the skin, aggravates skin diseases, and sometimes occasions boils, just as salt-meat sometimes occasions

scurvy. Whether this be so or not,

I cannot pretend to say, for on this point authorities disagree, but we can scarcely imagine anyone so circumstanced as to be compelled to live for any length of time exclusively on oatmeal.

I told you in my last chapter of the phosphates of the human body, phosphate of lime, of soda, of potash, and of magnesia! The bones especially select and appropriate phosphate of lime, while the muscles take phosphates of potash, and magnesia; the cartilages prefer "to build in" phosphate of soda.

We are, of course, always wasting the phosphates, and our system cries for fresh supplies, ΟΙ we "go out " like Mr. Stultus' fire! There are two sources of phosphate in our food, but the first great source is from cereal plants, which are wheat, barley, rye, rice, maize, and other grasses. From wheaten bread and flour we get the largest quantity of phosphates; the cereal itself taking up the phosphates from the soil. It is then of primary importance that we eat every day a certain quantity of thoroughly good bread, and if, when children cry for food before the proper meal time, they were accustomed to eat a simple slice of bread, instead of cakes, cold pudding, and divers kinds of trash, their constitutions would be infinitely benefited, their whole system strengthened, the natural fretfulness of childhood mitigated, and the child himself, not being used to pernicious sweets and improper delicacies, would be quite content, and like the bread as well as another likes his lump of heavy greasy cake! You must remember always that it is as cruel to try a child's stomach by giving it man's food to digest, as it would be to test the tender muscles and the gristly bones, with such labour as a full grown man performs. I intended to speak of arrowroot, tapioca, sago, and other farinaces, but space forbids, and we will talk about them, if we live, next month.