“Finally satisfied that there is no enemy in sight, he comes entirely into view, and, standing upright on his hind legs, cocks his head to one side, like a rooster that has been out in the rain. It is then that the hunter’s opportunity has arrived.
“The ground hog is largely a vegetarian although he does eat bugs, but prefers grains, roots, and grasses. Unlike the opossum, he will not touch carrion nor any unwholesome food.”
For Good Health Drink Deeply of Adam’s Ale.
“A gallon a day will keep the doctor away.”
This is what many physicians say—in one way or another—when asked if it is a good thing to drink much water.
Doctors disagree, however, about whether it is a good thing to drink water with meals, the majority believing that food should not be washed down with liquids, but should be thoroughly chewed and mixed with saliva, which is an aid to digestion. But several doctors who were asked about it asserted that it was good to drink even as much as a quart of water with meals.
All of the seven doctors who were interviewed about the benefits of water drinking agreed that the copious drinking of water was a preventive of disease, and they had known many cases in which health was restored by the drinking of water in large quantities. One doctor advocates the drinking of as much as three gallons of water a day in very warm weather, reducing the amount when the weather is cooler, but never drinking less than a gallon a day.
“Why,” said this physician, “two-thirds of the weight of the body is water. In a very warm day in August an average man who is at work will perspire from two to six quarts of water a day. Where is it all coming from if you don’t drink it? Many poisons generated by the body are exuded through the pores of the skin in perspiration. Many persons think they are not perspiring unless they can see beads of water on the skin. But we perspire at all times, waking and sleeping, and we do not see it because it evaporates immediately. It is almost impossible to drink too much water.”
Another doctor said; “I saw a short article in a newspaper the other evening quoting an eminent medical authority as saying that all girls and women who wished to have a good complexion should drink two quarts of water a day. I would double that and advise them to drink four quarts a day. Give the body plenty of pure water, inside and outside, a gallon a day inside, a thorough[Pg 59] bathing of the whole body at least once a day, and plenty of exercise, preferably by outdoor walking, and you can’t very well be sick. If any one would do that, one-half the doctors would have to seek some other business. If every woman would do that, the rouge and complexion powder factories would shut down. There is nothing so good as plenty of water drunk every day for the complexion.”
One physician said: “I am not claiming that the drinking of plenty of water is a preventive of all diseases; that would be misleading and silly, but I will say this: I have cured several bad cases of rheumatism, and many cases of stomach ailments with water alone. In those cases the patients were in the habit of drinking very little water. I prescribed a quart of water before breakfast each morning and a gallon on going to bed at night. It worked a cure in each case.