QUESTIONS.
How does the brain send messages to the different parts of the body?
What does the heart do?
What does the blood take up from the body?
How does it get rid of impurities?
What becomes of food after it is swallowed?
How are the bones of a child different from those of a grown person?
How does it hurt the bones to sit or stand badly?
Why should we sit up straight?
How ought babies to be carried?
Why is it hurtful to carry them on the hip?
What do we call the muscles?
What are their uses?
How can we make our muscles strong?
CHAPTER II.
THE STORY OF WATER.
Governor-General Carriedo
Who gave Manila her waterworks.
Many years ago there was a wise governor-general in the Philippine Islands, who left a large sum of money to the city of Manila. This money was to be put out at interest and allowed to increase, and in his will the governor-general directed that when there should be a large enough sum, it should be used to build waterworks for the city of Manila.
Pumping Station, Manila Waterworks.
The waterworks were not built until a hundred years after the governor-general died. In 1872 another wise governor-general came to the islands, and learning of this money which had been left, he at once set to work to provide the city with a water supply. This was one of the best things that ever happened to Manila. In the tropics nothing is more important than pure water.
There is a great deal of water in the body. In fact, three fourths of the body is made up of water. It is in the blood, in the muscles, and in the bones. There is even some water in the enamel of the teeth, which is the hardest substance in the whole body. The digestive juices, the saliva, and the different intestinal juices, all help to dissolve some part of the food which we take. To obtain this power to dissolve the food, they depend upon water.
When a man is thirsty, it seems to him that his throat is dry. But dryness of the throat is only a sign by which the body makes known its need. Thirst is the cry of the fluids and tissues for water. It means that some part of the body is suffering for the precious fluid.
If we look at a drop of water under a microscope, which magnifies it many times, we shall see in the water a great number of moving specks which are really little animals. The animals are so small that thousands of them can live in a single drop of water as happily as they could in a whole ocean of room. They are called germs. Some of them are wholesome: they help to keep the water bright and sparkling and sweet, and make it pleasant to the taste. But some of them are very harmful: they produce many kinds of disease, most of which cause death.
It is because of these germs that people, particularly in tropical countries, have to be so careful about the water they drink. The purest water that we have is clean rain water. This is the vapor which rises from the earth and from the surface of the sea. It ascends into the air until it strikes a current of cold air, when it is turned into moisture and falls as rain.
We can catch the rain water in cisterns or other vessels; and this water we may drink without boiling, if we are careful to keep the cisterns clean. The cistern, to be perfectly sweet, should be emptied and cleaned at least once every two weeks.
The Wrong Place for a Well.
In this country nearly all the drinking water comes from wells. Well water may be very good, but the chances are that it is full of impurities. The water from the wells is rain water which has soaked into the earth and has collected in the well. But the earth is always full of impurities. It is like a great sponge through which the water flows, and the water is pretty sure to take up some impurities as it sinks through the earth.
If a well is near an outhouse or stable, or a place where cattle are kept, the water that filters through this earth will carry with it germs from these places. A well should always be on higher ground than any outbuildings. It should be some distance from the house, and no slops or anything emptied from the house should be put near it. No drainage of any kind should run near it.
In the city of Pittsburg, in the United States, some years ago, there was an epidemic of typhoid fever. Many thousands of people died, and at last the legislature of Pennsylvania appointed a committee to investigate the cause of the epidemic. This committee began to study the source of the city water supply. They traced it far up the mountains, many miles away, until they found a certain little stream emptying into a large river which supplied the city. Living on the banks of this stream was a family where there was a case of typhoid fever. The slops from the house had been thrown into the stream and had so poisoned the water that thousands of people in far-away Pittsburg died of typhoid fever.
In Manila there was once a great cholera epidemic, during which more than thirty thousand Filipinos in the city and province of Manila died; many Spanish people died also. During the worst of the epidemic the death rate was at least a thousand every day. But only one Englishman died, and it is said that his death was due to his own carelessness in drinking impure water.
If everybody in the city had boiled and filtered the drinking water, as the Americans and the English did, nearly all of these thirty thousand people would have escaped death.
What has been said of the impurities collected by water passing through the earth is especially true of the water which supplies Manila. The ground all about the city has been so long occupied by large numbers of people, the drainage has been so poor and so many impurities have been cast out, that the soil for a great distance around the city is a mass of decay. To stir up the earth, as when digging and laying pipes, makes the men who do it feverish and often ill, because of the gases rising from the soil. We may judge from this how bad the water must be that drains through the earth and is collected in the wells of the city. Even the water in the Carriedo water pipes cannot be said to be pure. It comes from a river far from the city. On the banks of this river are many native villages, and the people throw all sorts of refuse into the stream. They wash their clothes in it, and bathe themselves, their horses, and their carabaos there. For this reason the water should be purified before we drink it.
When the Americans first came to Manila the city was not kept as clean as it is now. This is one reason why there were so many deaths in Manila, and because of the high death rate, the Americans at once set to work to clean the city. To do this cost the lives of many American soldiers, who died of fever caused by bad gases from the earth; but since it was done, the death rate in Manila is less than it ever was before.
But even yet the death rate is greater than it would be, if everybody would be careful about food and drink. The greater number of those who die are little children. Indeed, one third of all the deaths in Manila are of children who die of a single complaint. This is the terrible fits from which we so often see little babies suffering. The fits are caused by trouble in the stomach and bowels, arising from bad food and drink. Sometimes the little one dies because it is worn out by the pain it has suffered. Sometimes the brain is affected by the stomach trouble; but the true cause of death in every such case is impure water or the wrong kind of food. Most of the trouble comes from the water which the children drink.
Not even a grown person ought to drink water that has not been boiled. It is not safe, for the germs of many of the tropical diseases are found in the water. All of these germs are killed by that degree of heat which we call the boiling point. No less heat than this will kill them.
It is not enough merely to heat the water; it must really boil for at least five minutes after it begins to bubble and simmer. It ought then to be strained through a clean cloth and put at once into a banga or some other of the jars used to contain water. The jar should be clean, and should have a cover. If it is hung in a draft of air, the water will become cool enough to drink.
The jars used to hold water should be of ware that will “sweat” after the liquid has been in them for some time. That is, the outside should be covered with beads of moisture which have crept through the sides. This sort of jar keeps the water cool and lets the air get to it. Water, after it has been boiled, is tasteless and flat, and until it again takes up oxygen from the air, it is not so pleasant to drink, or so digestible as it was before boiling.
We have seen how important water is to life, and we cannot have too high an idea of the importance of its being pure. It is not enough that water looks clear and sparkling. It may look like crystal and yet be full of poisonous germs. The only way to be certain that it is pure is to boil it and then see that no further impurities get into it before it is used.