Three-fourths of the earth's surface is covered with water. Nearly 90 per cent, of the human body is water. It bears up our ships as they plough the ocean, and drives our dashing railway cars in the form of steam. It was God's one great instrument in building the world; transforming the rocks and mud and sand, and transmuting the plants into coal! Descending in gentle showers, it clothes the hills and valleys in green; gives moisture and sustenance to the buds and blossoms of the trees; it softens and lubricates our food and then, in the form of a watery fluid, carries the nourishing atoms and elements to every part of the body, that the thinking, conscious soul - a real, substantial entity - may superintend the building and repairing of its own material dwelling.

While water exists in three states: the solid, as in ice; the liquid and the gaseous, rainwater falling upon the mountains, far up above the smoke and the dust of the streets, is the purest form of water found in nature. This may very properly be called distilled water - distilled in the skies, and is a most potent solvent. The way, then, to obtain the purest water, mechanically, is to distil it; that is, to boil it and then collect the water produced by the condensation of the steam.

The idea held by some of the oriental nations, that dew-water collected from the hill-tops and mountains and used as a drink would tend to prolong life, was a very rational one, and for the reason that it was, or is, absorbed directly into the blood with all its solvent properties, which properties prevent the deposition of salts and the process of ossification in the various structures and organs, as well as favor the elimination of poisons through the perspiration, the urine and the faeces.

Though too poor to own a $500 piano, you are not too poor to own a bath-tub, and you should not be too slovenly or lazy to use it. To bathe does not simply mean to soak one's self in water. A quick hand or sponge bath is the thing. Then a good, coarse towel and a self massage.

The skin, remember, absorbs as well as secretes. Take a portion of a chicken's intestine, fill it with milk and tie both ends securely; immerse it in water, and in a short time the milk will pass out of the intestine into the water, and a portion of the water without will pass inwardly, mingling with the milk. The sick may be fed and nourished to some extent through the skin.

Returning from consular service in Trebizonde, Asiatic Turkey, by way of Constantinople, Smyrna, Sicily and Italy I visited exhumed Pompeii, and carefully examined those half-ruined temples, lava-paved streets, stone ovens and great stone bathing-houses. Those stalwart Pompeiians took their cold baths in the morning, their sun-baths at noontime and their soothing tepid baths in the evening.

The ancient Romans far excelled us in their free public bathing-houses. In her palmy days Rome - the city of Rome - had 16 public baths. How many have New York, Philadelphia and Boston each? These public baths were kept up for 500 years. The water supply was brought through aqueducts. In Diocletian's time 18,000 persons could bathe at the same time; and connected with these baths were in-door gymnasiums, libraries, lecture halls and rooms for anointing. Bathing for health was a national habit among the Romans.

Will some of our selfish, money-grubbing, postponed possibilities of men, called millionaires, read these telling words of Senaca? "In Rome a person was held to be poor and sordid whose bath did not shine with a profusion of the most precious materials, the marbles of Egypt inlaid with those of Numidia; unless the walls were laboriously stuccoed in imitation of painting; unless the basins were covered with Thasian stone, and the water conveyed through silver pipes. The baths had a profusion of statues, a number of columns supporting nothing, placed as ornaments merely on account of the expense; the water murmuring down steps, and the floor of precious stones."

For removing congestion, equalizing the circulation of the blood and quieting the nervous system, the bath followed by vigorous friction has no equal. Try it.

Pure soft water, drank freely at bed-time, palliates and often cures constipation. On the other hand, water containing large quantities of carbonate and sulphate of lime is unhealthy.

The undue accretion of mineral matter in or about any organ, or the accumulation of earthy phosphates in the system, often noticeable in the urine, tends to diseases and the shortening of human life. Among the solvents for removing these difficulties are the mineral acids: sulphuric, nitric, hydrochlorine and, especially, phosphoric acid. Some physicians consider the latter a specific.

Milk, when cows are rightly fed and cared for, is a most admirable drink; and so is buttermilk, a form of milk deprived of its oily substance, and though ordinarily given to swine and fowls, it is decidedly beneficial to many invalids, and should be more extensively utilized in the family.

Impure water, containing not only lime and various sedimentary substances, but sometimes spores, microscopic parasites and germs of disease, should be boiled. This is customary with many hygienists in both England and Germany, the process destroying the germs, and at the same time depositing the lime upon the kettle. Clear crystal water from springs does not contain spores or germs, neither does water distilled high up in the vapory heavens.

Alcohol and intoxicating liquors of all kinds should not be touched as beverages. They do not quench thirst; they are not food; they do not make muscle, sinew, bone, blood, nerve nor brain-cells. And, further, nearly all liquors are adulterated: wines containing logwood; beer, strychnine, prussic acid and carbonate of magnesia.

Dr. Carl Braun states that a wine merchant once sent Lord Palmerston a case of wine, with the assurance that it was good for the gout; but the steward soon afterwards returned it, with the explanation that his lordship had tried it and preferred the gout!

And what of tea? It is a temporary stimulant, and the rest which it gives in fatigue is apparent rather than real. It does not contain nutrition, blood-making particles nor any of the elements of true strength. It is injurious to the nervous system; it causes indigestion and palpitation of the heart. "The essential principle of tea," says the American Journal of Chemistry, "is theine, and in its properties is closely allied to strychnine and morphine. Tea is an astringent, giving to the stomach a shriveled, leathery texture, preventing the free escape of the gastric juices, and often causing a sallow appearance of the skin. Green tea is altogether more injurious than black. When in China, I saw the Chinese color their teas and prepare them for market, and, further, I saw Chinese boys standing upon broad polished stones, overspread with teas, and rolling them with their bare, dirty feet! Tea-drinkers should remember that there have been 52,000,000 pounds of tea imported into New York since the law requiring inspection went into effect a year ago. In that time 650,000 pounds of adulterated tea have been condemned. These have been mostly green teas, and, as a result, their importation has fallen off over 6,000,000 pounds from the previous year. People are just beginning to understand that teas are frequently adulterated and dirty. Neither tea nor coffee as a daily beverage is necessary or healthful.

No drinks should be taken into the stomach above the average temperature of the blood. Hot tea and coffee produce just as debilitating effects upon the stomach as hot baths do upon the body.

Should we drink while eating? "No," exclaims Dio Lewis, and also scores of his imitators, "not a drop," adding, "whoever saw a horse take a mouthful of hay and then a swallow of water?" No one, of course. Neither did anyone see a horse go to the fire to warm himself, nor start off for a blacksmith shop when he required shoeing! It is neither healthy or wise to drink very cold water, or very freely of liquids of any kind at meal times, as they dilute the gastric juice and so hinder digestion. But the sipping of quite warm water, with a little milk in it and a trifle of sugar, while eating is not injurious and may be, for some temperaments, really beneficial, because it helps to moisten and lubricate the food while in the process of uniting with the saliva, 94 per cent, of which is water.

A teacupful of hot water drank 15 minutes before each meal is beneficial in some forms of dyspepsia.

Nothing will quench thirst but water.

The natural and proper drink, then, for man is water - soft spring water, filtered water, distilled water!