Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1886 — Bad Effects of Drinking Water. [ARTICLE]

Bad Effects of Drinking Water.

Sanitary matters are as bad in Bokhara as they used to be in England; but the people are far less to blame than our fathers were, for England is by nature blessed far more than Bokhara in regard to matters of health. Some London water is even now—well, let us say, trying to the constitution—after it has been stored for a month or so in a filthy water-butt. But no length* of storage will, in our happy climate, breed the “rishta,” that horrible worm found also in parts of West Africa, and taken long ago over to the New World. Old Jenkinson, who in 1558, being in the Bussian service, sailed over the Caspian and made his way to Bokhara, says: “The water is very bad, breeding in the legs worms an ell long. If these break in being pulled out, the patient dies. For all this inccnvenience, they are forbidden to drink any liquor but water and mare’s milk; and those who break this law are whipt through the market; yea, if only a man’s breath smells of spirits he shall have a good drubbing. ” It is not quite so bad as Jenkinson said; but if the “rishta” does break, all the little worms inside it spread through the body, and the sufferer gets full of ulcers, which take months to heal. The native barbers use a needle and their thumb to squeeze it out. The Bussian doctors wind it out on a reel, so much a day, till the whole is extracted. It varies from three to seven feet in length! How does it get in ? Why, the little pools are full of a very smell gray crustacean (the “Cyclops”), whose color makes him almost invisible. Men swallow these, and they are pretty sure to be infested with “rishta” germs, which, finding in the human stomach a good place for their development, develop accordingly, and work their way to the skin. I wonder if Dr. Lansdell gave the Bokhariots a hint about boiling their water, not once only, but (as Prof. Tyndall recommends) twice at least, so as to kill the germs which have escaped the first boiling.— All the Year Hound.