Jain Journal 1980 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 32

Drink Boiled Water
Dr. J. C. Baid, MS
The medical research has proved that in true sense water is never pure. It contains certain impurities, both dissolved and suspended. The dissolved are hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, ammonia and nitrogen, all gases and salts of calcium and magnesium, the minerals. The suspended impurities are clay, silt, sand and mud. The other impurities which we cannot see by riaked eyes are natural impurities derived from atmosphere, catchment area and the soil.
Men's health can be affected by ingestion of contaminated water either directly or through food. The diseases caused by ingestion of contaminated water are viral hepatisis (jaundice), poliomyelitis, cholera, typhoid, dysenteries, gastroenteries, infantile diarrhoea, amebiosis, giardiasis (worm), roundworm, whipworm, threadworm, hydatid disease, guineworm and tapeworm infestation, etc. These diseases sometimes need surgical intervention and may take life of the patient. Otherwise they remain with the patient throughout his life in some form or other.
In the present day life drinking boiled water is still more important because of fast growing human activity-urbanization and industrialization. The sources of pollution in addition to diseases listed above are sewage, industrial and trade wastes and physical pollutants, viz. heat and radioactive substances. Chemical pollutants of diverse nature derived from industrial and agricultural waste are increasingly finding their way into public water supplies. These pollutants include detergent solvents, cyanides, heavy metals, minerals and organic acids, nitrogenous substances, bleeching agents, dye-pigments, sulfides, ammonia, toxic and biocidal organic compounds of great variety.
W.H.O. is very serious about limiting water pollution. Government of India passed Water Pollution Act in 1974. These days consumption of drugs for the treatment of water born diseases is more, e.g. amebiosis and different types of intestinal worms. Newspapers often report epidemics of cholera, jaundice, gastroenteries and dysenteries in some parts of the country from time to time because of water pollution.