ICE-WATER INJURIOUS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 10.

ICE-WATER INJURIOUS.

DR. WM. A. HAMMOND, in the North American Review, writes of the injurious effects of drinking ice-water, as follows:—

“Direct experiment with instruments especially devised for the purpose of measuring the force of the heart’s pulsations, establishes the fact that there is no agent of the materia medica more powerful with some persons as a depressant of this organ than a large draught of ice-water. Under certain circumstances it acts with all the force and rapidity of prussic acid.” Dr. Hammond says much harm comes from the drinking of so-called mineral waters. On this subject he says: “Many deaths of persons have occurred while in the very act of drinking these more than ice-cold liquids, and I am, myself, conversant with numerous cases in which great mental and physical prostration was the result.” In one or two of these instances stubborn facial neuralgia was induced.

“A person who drinks a great deal of ice-water at meals very materially lessens his ability to enjoy the good things of the table, for the sense of taste is greatly impaired when the temperature of the inside of the mouth is reduced many degrees below the normal standard.” And further on he says the effect of ice-water upon the stomach is no less marked, the function of digestion being more or less suspended, confirmed dyspepsia being a necessary consequence; “and this frequently assumes the form of gastric catarrh, than which few disorders are more intractable.” The drinking of ice-water also causes diarrhea, and the doctor says there is some reason to believe that cancer of the stomach is one of its consequences. “I am quite sure that if ice-water should be generally discarded as a drink, the average duration of life would be lengthened, and existence rendered more tolerable.”