Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — Water in the Sick Room. [ARTICLE]

Water in the Sick Room.

It is a fact that appears to be not generally known, perhaps because it may not be geneially credited, that pure, fresh cold water is one of the most valuable disinfectants, inasmuch as it Is a powerful absorbent. Every sick-room should have a large vessel of clear water, frequently renewed, placed not far f.om the bed, or even beneath it: This not only absorbs much of the hurtful vapor, but by its evaporation it softens and tempers the atmosphere, doing away with the dryness which is so trying and depressing to an invalid —or even to welt persons, for that matter. It has frequently been shown, by actual experiment, that troubled sleep and threatened insomnia are coirected by so simple a thing as the placing of an open bowl of water near the sufferer's couch. Of course, it hardly needs be said, after these matters have been considered for a moment, frrat water which has stood for any length of time in a close room is not fit for drinking purposes. The head-dresses of the Utter part of the seventeenth century were o' ten five feet high, so that a lady’s face appeared to be In the middle of her hsdy.