p. 509 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 32.

Health and Temperance.

BRIGHT'S DISEASE AND ICED WATER.

A BALTIMORE druggist of experience and ample opportunity for observation, has advanced the idea that Bright's disease is attributable to the immoderate use of iced water and cold drinks. He cites the fact that the people of this country use ninety per cent. more ice in their drinks than the people of any other country, Greenlanders not excepted. We have seventy-five per cent. more of Bright's disease. He cites the fact that the wine-drinking countries of Europe are comparatively free from the malady.

Travelers have observed and commented upon the prejudice which seems to exist against iced water and iced drinks in all countries outside of the United States. The Englishman and the German fairly shun ice, though placed in easy reach of boundless quantities of it, and the Frenchman who sips the light wines would as soon think of taking an emetic as of chilling his stomach with an iced draught. Our drug friend points to the fact that Bright's disease has kept pace in this country with the increased consumption of ice, and claims that before ice became a common household necessity the malady was scarcely known among physicians. There may be something in this theory.—Baltimore Gazette.