Hard and Soft Water. There is a
notion quite prevalent in the minds of
people that drinking hard water is inju
rious to health, and most physicians have
warned people to as far as possible
avoid the practice. But Dr. Letherby,
an English physician, who has devoted
much time to investigating the subject
finds as the result of his observations
that hard water is not only clearer,
colder, more free from air, and more
agreeable to the taste than soft, but
that it is less liable to the absorption
of organic matter and to the sustenance
of the life of zymotic organisms, or to
exert solvent properties upon salts of
iron, or upon leaden conducting pipes.
And he claims that the lime salts exert
a beneficial influence. It is asserted
that a practical test of the truth of this
new theory is to be had in the case of
the residents of mountainous districts,
where the water is most invariably hard.
and where the inhabitants exhibit the
best physical development. He claims
that a water containing about six grainB
of carbonate of lime to the gallon is
suitable for use in all household pur
poses, for such water offers the neoes
sary amount of carbonate of lime for
the support of life in the simplest and
most digestible form.
