continued privation of it is, perhaps, of all modes of death the most dreadful. This we learn from the occasional accounts of individuals who have escaped from shipwrecks, in which their companions had perished amidst the agonies of thirst. And it is said of those unhappy victims of a barbarous punishment, in Persia, (who being immured in masonry as to every part of their body but the head, are left to perish in that state,) that they terminate their last hours, perhaps days, in incessant cries for water.

The necessity of this element for our support may be antecedently inferred, on philosophical principles, from an examination of the physical composition of any animal body; of which, in by far the greater number of instances, more than three-fourths of the whole weight are due to the presence of water. This water of composition may be easily separated by the application of a moderate degree of heat, or even by spontaneous evaporation at a common temperature, without any further decomposition of the body; the muscles and skin consequently shrinking to such an extent, as to give the whole frame the appearance of a skeleton, enveloped, as it were, in parchment. Such a result is occasionally observable in human bodies which have been deposited in dry cemeteries; and is by no means uncommon in the case of small animals, as rats, for instance, which having been acci

dentally wedged in between a wall and a wainscot, are subsequently found in the state above described.

An experiment of a very simple character in itself, and very easily made, will serve to ascertain, not only the proportional quantity of water of composition contained in some forms of animal matter, but also the properties communicated by the presence of that element thus combined. Every one has noticed the opaline or milky appearance and the remarkable elasticity of cartilage, or gristle, as it is more commonly called which characters depend on the water contained in it; for if a piece of gristle, the weight of which has been previously ascertained, be exposed to the air of a warm room, it will at the end of a few hours have lost a portion of its weight; and will have become nearly transparent, and entirely inelastic: and if, in this state, it be immersed in water, it will gradually recover its original weight, and also its elasticity and opaline appearance. If, instead of gristle, a piece of boiled white of egg be employed, the same results will be observable; for, together with loss of weight and elasticity, it will become brittle, and nearly as transparent as pure amber: and on the other hand, by subsequent immersion in water, its original properties will be soon restored. By experiments nearly as simple as those above mentioned it may be demon

strated, that all the liquid and solid parts of an animal, with some few exceptions, contain or consist of more than three-fourths of their weight of water the importance of which element in the mere composition of our body is hence directly evident.

But if we would have a familiar illustration of its importance in the daily and hourly occurrences of life, let us in imagination accompany an individual of moderate rank and condition in society, from the time of his rising in the morning till the hour of sleep at night, in order to observe the utility of water in administering either directly or indirectly to his various wants and habits. How great is the comfort, to say nothing of the salubrity of the practice, which results to him from the application of water to the surface of the body, by means either of the bath or any simpler process! and, again, the change of the linen in which he is partially clothed is rendered equally comfortable and salutary, in consequence of its having been previously submitted to the process of washing. The infusion of coffee or of tea, which is probably an essential part of his earliest meal, could not have been prepared without water: neither could the flour of which his bread consists, have been kneaded; nor the food of his subsequent meal, the broths and most of the vegetables at least, have been rendered digestible, without the aid of the same fluid;

and with respect to his common beverage, whether milk, or any form of fermented liquor, water still constitutes the main bulk of that beverage.

So far the use of water is directly and immediately necessary to his comfort and subsistence: but its indirect and remote necessity is equally observable in all that surrounds him. There is scarcely an article of his apparel, in some part of the preparation of which water has not been necessarily employed; in the tanning of the leather of his shoes; in the dressing of the flax of which his linen is made; in the dyeing of the wool of his coat, or of the materials of his hat. Without water the china or earthen cups, out of which he drinks, could not have been turned on the lathe; nor the bricks, of which his house is constructed, nor the mortar by which they are cemented, have been formed. The ink with which he writes, and the paper which receives it, could not have been made without the use of water. The knife with which he divides his solid food, and the spoon with which he conveys it when in a liquid form to his mouth, could not have been, or at least have not probably been formed, without the application of water during some part of the process of making them.

By water the medical principles of various vegetable and mineral substances are extracted, and rendered potable; which could not be introduced into the animal system in a solid state:

and this element itself becomes occasionally a most powerful medicinal instrument by its external application, in every one of its forms; whether as a liquid, under the name of the cold or warm bath; or in the form of ice, in restraining internal inflammation and hemorrhage; or in the state of steam, as in the application of the vapour bath.

SECT. V.

Baths.

THE custom of bathing, whether in a medium of a high or of a low temperature, appears to be in a great measure derived from the gratification of a natural feeling for we find it prevalent in every country and in every stage of society, not only with reference to its medicinal effects, but as a mere luxury. Thus at every season of the year, when the sky is serene at least, the inhabitants of hot climates plunge into their native streams for the sake of the refreshment imparted to the surface of their bodies; and the same refreshment is equally sought by the natives of colder climates during the heat of their short summer: in each of which instances the pleasurable sensation is the principal motive for the practice. But on some occasions a more permanent good is sought; and the hope of immediate pleasure is so far from being the motive, that a sensation very nearly allied to pain, and many instances less tolerable than pain itself,

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