Diseases Caused by Alkaline Waters. -- the symptoms referral to an excess of alkalinity, rising from the presence of these earthy salts in a drinking water, and mainly those of a dyspeptic nature. At first the employment of hard water by persons who are unaccustomed to it produces diarrhea. Which is occasionally serious or even dangerous in its character. But the long continued use of such a drinking fluid is thought to cause habitual constipation, with the heavy training of evils, including piles and liver complaint, which depend upon it. Calculus, or stone in the kidney or in the bladder, which gives rise sometimes to the most horrible agony human beings are ever called upon to endure, is believed to be due, in many instances, to an excess of lime and magnesia salts in the drinking water.
This section is definitely interesting. And as I read this section, I distinctly heavy memory of watching an old Clint Eastwood movie. Clint Eastwood's trek across the desert somewhere in the southwest of the United States, and of course the bad guys are chasing him. Clint Eastwood is smart enough to recognize that the water in one pool that he comes to has an alkalinity level far too high to drink. He has a sidekick, who initially attempt to drink the water but Clint Eastwood stops him knowing better. Then the bad guys come by sometime later and drink the water and one of them croak's. This particular section highlights the fact that you may not die instantly from drinking this water but it can definitely make you very ill in the short-term afterwords, or very ill in a chronic way if you consume this type of water over a long period of time. Plus I'm sure that there is some water that is poisonous right from go.
This section also reminds me of a water purification straw that was handed out at a trade show that I attended a few years back. The water purification straw was handed out like personalized pens are handed out at most trade shows, but this was a bit of a outdoorsman tradeshow focusing on hunting tools and guns and stuff like that. I'm under the impression that water purification straw's or tablets even only work to essentially remove microbes are things that might trigger Montezuma's revenge, but now I have to wonder if maybe they had the ability to cancel out our alkalinity and balance the pH a bit.
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- How Mosquitoes Develop
How mosquitoes develop.-A Female mosquito lays from 200 to 300 eggs at a time and always in standing water, as the eggs must have still water and no matter how filthy the water, it will not destroy the eggs or prevent their development.
This is such a basic description that it is almost not worth the ink it is printed with. But if you take a look at Wikipedia, you might get just a simple sense of how much our knowledge has grown. Below is what constitutes a basic reference on the biology of Mosquito from Wikipedia. Where are previous knowledge of a mosquito could be measured in a couple dozen bits, it might now take a few megs of ram to contain our knowledge.
Anatomy
The mosquito is composed of a head, thorax, and abdomen. The head contains two compound eyes and proboscis. The proboscis is a piercing mouthpart used to suck blood from its prey. The mosquito’s head is mostly eye. Each eye is made up of many tiny lenses forming a compound eye. This type of eye allows a very big field of vision that easily detects movement. Next is the thorax. The thorax has one pair of wings and one pair of halteres. The thorax also has markings that are used in the identification of the mosquito. The abdomen, or gut, expands as it ingests its prey’s blood. The abdomen also has many markings that are used to identify the mosquito species.
[edit] Life cycle and feeding habits
Culex mosquito larvae
In its life cycle the mosquito undergoes complete metamorphosis, going through four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult, first described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.[28]
[edit] Egg
Female mosquitoes lay their eggs one at a time or together in rafts of fifty or more eggs on the surface in fresh or any stagnant water. Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes do not make egg rafts but lay their eggs separately. Culex, Culiseta, and Anopheles lay their eggs on water while Aedes lay their eggs on damp soil that is periodically flooded by water. Most eggs hatch into larvae in about 48 hours. A female mosquito may lay a raft of eggs every third night during its life span if it can find enough blood to develop the eggs.
[edit] Larval stage
The hatching eggs turn into larvae that live in the water, coming to the surface to breathe. The first larval stage is known as the first instar. As they grow, they shed or moult their skin about four times, growing larger after each moulting. After the first molt they are second instars, then third, then fourth. Most larvae use siphon tubes going to the water surface for breathing and hang on or near the water surface. Anopheles larvae do not have a siphon and typically lie parallel to the water surface. The larvae eat micro-organisms and organic matter in the water for food. Mosquito larvae, commonly called “wigglers” or “wrigglers”, must live in water from 7 to 14 days depending on the water’s temperature. At their last moult they may be up to 1 cm or 1/2 inch long. In each stage they may be eaten by other insects or fish. Mosquito larvae in the genus Toxorhynchites eat other mosquito larvae.
The length of the first three stages (or instars) is dependent on the species and temperature, with lower temperatures increasing the length of the development stage.[29] Culex tarsalis may complete its life cycle in 14 days at 20 C (68 F) and only ten days at 25 C (77 F). Some species have a life cycle of as little as four days, whereas in other species some adult females can live through the winter, laying their eggs in the spring. Many species of mosquito live their adult stage in roughly two weeks to two months. The larvae are the “wrigglers” found in puddles or water-filled containers. These breathe air through a siphon at the tail end. The pupae, or “tumblers”, are nearly as active as the larvae, but breathe through thoracic “horns” attached to the thoracic spiracles. Most larvae feed on micro-organisms, but a few are predatory on other mosquito larvae. Some mosquito larvae, such as those of Wyeomyia live in unusual situations. These mosquito wigglers live either in the water collected in epiphytic bromeliads or inside water stored in carnivorous pitcher plants. Larvae of the genus Deinocerites live in crab holes along the edge of the ocean. On the fourth molt the larva changes into a pupa.
[edit] Pupa
The pupae are lighter than water and float on the surface as the mosquito larva metamorphoses (changes) into an adult mosquito in about two days. Pupae do not have mouths and therefore do not feed. This is important to know from a larviciding point of view because most larvicide has to be ingested by the mosquito. A surface oil or mmf (monomolecular film) should be applied to the breeding site as a means of suffocating the pupa.
[edit] Adult
The newly emerged adult must rest on the surface of the water for a short time to allow itself to dry and all its parts to harden before it can fly. This requires still water: mosquitoes do not breed in fast-moving water.
The total time to go through all four stages depends on the temperature and the type of mosquito, but typically takes 14 days or less in warmer weather. In various species the time varies from 4 to 30 days.
Most mosquito species outside of the tropics overwinter as eggs, but many overwinter as larvae or adults. Mosquitoes of the genus Culex (a vector for St. Louis encephalitis) overwinter as mated adult females.
Most mosquitoes stay fairly close to the ground and do not range too far from where they were born, but may be dispersed long distances by wind. Mosquitoes are not strong flyers, making only 1-2 km/h (1-1.5 mph); therefore, an electric fan may suffice as an effective mosquito screen. They feed mostly in the mornings and evenings and occasionally at night, avoiding the heat of the day. During the day they usually find somewhere cool to rest. Mosquitoes can tend to live over puddled water or grassy areas.
Mosquito biting finger
Only female mosquitoes bite animals to get blood needed to produce eggs. Male mosquitoes do not bite, but both the male and female feed on the nectar of flowers for food. In most female mosquitoes, the mouth parts form a long proboscis for piercing the skin of mammals (or in some cases birds or even reptiles and amphibians) to suck their blood. As opposed to a syringe’s typically smooth needle, the mosquito proboscis is highly serrated, which leaves a minimal number of points of contact with the skin being pierced — this reduces nerve stimulation to the point where the “bite” is typically not felt at all. (See the Mosquitoes and health section below for an explanation on the swelling). The females require protein for egg development and laying, and since the normal mosquito diet consists of nectar and fruit juice, which has no protein, most females must drink blood to lay eggs. Males differ from females, with mouth parts not suitable for blood-sucking.
The female mosquitoes locate their next blood donor victims primarily through scent. They are extremely sensitive to the carbon dioxide in exhaled breath, as well as to substances found in sweat and various body odours such as 1-octen-3-ol. They are believed to be able to track potential prey for tens of meters. Some people attract more mosquitoes than others, apparently based on how they “smell” to a mosquito. Mosquitoes can also detect heat, so they can find warm-blooded mammals and birds very easily once they get close enough. Repellents like DEET work by disorienting the mosquito as it gets close to its potential next meal but do not kill mosquitoes. Surprisingly this works about 95% of the time.[citation needed]
Male mosquitoes may tend to be smaller than females, with features such as feathered antennae and conspicuous external genitalia.
- Wonderful It All Is
Wonderful It All Is.–Wonderful! Within us is an Almighty Architect, who superintends a thousand skilled laborers, that make a way which puzzles human comprehension; theory fiber of muscle; they are a filament of nerve; here constructing a bone; they are uniting attendant — fashioning each with the most scrupulous care and unerring nicety. Without the buzz of a saw, or the sound of a hammer; without the slightest compression, or the least particle of boys; with a regularity, certainty and exactness, the glorious temple of man, in the image of his Creator, goes up and up, day by day, skilfully put together by these noiseless, tireless and expert workman.
First off it like to point out that this section utilizes the words “superintends” and it spells the words ’skilfully’ with one ‘l’ in skill. These two spelling items or word usages seem to be a good illustration of the change of spelling and vocabulary over a hundred years. I’ve read thousands of books never seen the word superintends in print before. I’ve never seen the word skillfully printed with one L. either.
Second, this section is definitely full of nonsecular references. It’s the closing paragraph of this particular section that was several pages long covering the digestive apparatus and its wonders. This section seems to have included more information about the wonders than the actual digestive apparatus, which would have been suitable for a Bible but not necessarily for a medical textbook.
Finally this section has a number of crazy references again which seems to capitalize on the last two or three sections that were full of gibberish that were put there for no apparent purpose whatsoever other than to fill pages with print.
- THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE BY ELIMINATION OF DISEASE CARRIERS
When speaking of preventative medicine, we include the methods used by physicians, state and federal government boards of health, etc.., to prevent the spread of disease, the most important is the work done by past and present men of science and their willing patients who have given their time, labor, and in many cases, their lives to discover the underlying causes of disease, for the latter, like everything else in the world, has its reasons for existence. Thus it can readily be understood the disease cannot be properly prevented when the underlying cause is unknown.
Before does section of the human body and experiments on animals were permitted, man’s knowledge of his own body and disease, its causes and symptoms and treatment was mere guesswork. Thus in past centuries the arteries are thought to contain error instead of blood; disease was believed to be a curse from heaven or the king and everything lay in the hands of the gods as to whether a person recovered or not.
This in the last century, man began to awaken from his sleep and by means of the discovery of the microscope and the permission to experiment upon living animals more and more the cause of disease, its transference from one animal to another and then from animal to man and man to man was tried, and it was the same symptoms occurred in the animal or man into which the blood of the animals suffering from the original disease had been placed by injection into their blood, etc. By these methods gradually the cause of disease was found to be due to the presence of minute living bodies called bacilli or germs, etc., but it’s which were only visible when the blood, spit, urine, etc., of the sufferer was examined under the microscope and from this beginning are due the marvelous results of the present day in the prevention, treatment and cure of disease.
Health.-disease can be prevented by the individual doing everything in his power to keep in the best physical condition. Disease is a common enemy of all of us, waiting to destroy, but nature is in league with us if we obey her laws. With a normal body and pureblood should the invader arrived, the fight is on our side. But once the body is weakened by heredity as a result of our parents or forefathers neglect of the body, through the abuse of alcohol, tobacco or in moral living, lack of exercise, over eating and loss of sleep, overworked or lack of work or improper food, then will the soil be fertile for the planting of the germs of disease. When exposed and once planted the flight will be in their favor, as the rundown body will not have sufficient vitality to overcome the invader and sickness and death result.
So this is the kick off of the preventative medicine section. I find this particular section interesting as it talks about the benefits of animal testing, which was very important in the early evolution of medicine and science but today is viewed much differently than it was then. These days we’d perform a review of these procedures much differently than we did then, just like we review people differently such as Alli.
