Arsenic in Water. -- arsenic, copper and mercury are rarely found in drinking water is in America, except in streams flowing near chemical works, or unless they are introduced designedly with some murderous intention. These metals may, therefore, be practically ignored in the consideration of water from a hygienic point of view.

Last night, I was watching a rerun of Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp. I mention it only because of the reference to Arsenic, which I believe was the poison that Todd's wife (in the movie) took to kill herself while Todd was in Prison. The movie was set right around the time this book was written, and I suspect that a spouse going to prison back then for a 'white collar' crime was much more serious than today, when you could probably expect a wife to spend 2-4 years travelling around on Mediterranean cruises rather than taking arsenic to be done with the world.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Pulmonary Veins
  
  

  Pulmonary Veins. – From this net-work of arteries and air sells the radicals of the pulmonary veins arise, and, coalescing into larger and larger branches, at length accompany the arteries and return the blood to the left auricle of the heart in a purified condition. The pulmonary arteries and veins differ from the same vessels in the other parts of the body, since the former conveys the innocent blood, and the latter arterial blood.

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  I stopped on this short paragraph as I approach some larger sections. This segment again makes a reference to the word “net-work” in a style that is now out dated. The next section takes us into Breathing and then lung capacity.

• Spring- and Well-Waters
  
  

  Spring- and Well-Waters.– Spring- and well-waters are almost always more or less impregnated with the soluble ingredients of the earth and rocks through which they pass, and are therefore sometimes very unsuitable for the ordinary ones of life. As a general rule, they are colder than other waters, although hot springs are found in various parts of the world, some with a temperature as high as the boiling point.

   

  Now unlike the last section, the section actually seems to describe one of the categories that has fallen into the varieties of water section. That said, the author does seem to mix and match two different categories together by combining springs with Wells. The obvious difference here is that a spring is natural and a well as to be done by a person. The author also doesn’t seem to take any consideration as to what might heat a spring, and from that perspective you once again have two doubts the scientific inquiry that has taken place within this section, like you might doubt a doctor prescribing legal steroids to a person is uninjured and planning on competing in the Olympics.

• WATER IN ITS HYGENIC RELATIONS – THE USE OF WATER
  
  

  THE USES OF WATER.
  Adaptation of Water to Human Needs. Few people who enjoy the benefits of water think what a wonderful and unanswerable argument is afforded by them in favor of the goodness of an all-wise Creator to his creature, man. Of all the fluids with which we are acquainted water is by far the best adapted to the almost infinite variety of human wants, and it is the one of all others most abundant in nature, constituting as it does about three-fifths of the surface of our globe, and nearly seven-tenths of the bodies of man and of most animals. If the common fluid upon which we had to depend were quicksilver, or oil, its boiling-point would be so high that articles of food which we attempted to cook in it would be seriously injured in the effort to prepare them by its aid; and, on the other hand, nearly all the advantages of ice would fail us, in consequence of the exceedingly low temperature at which these substances remain fluid.

  This is the beginning of a new section book 3 and in this book they extensively cover the uses of water.  Its a resource that we often take for granted but its not as unimportant as say a tv stand or even a second pair of shoes.  Understanding how to protect and keep this resource safe was extremely important for every day life.