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Chapter XII: The Irrigation of the Body.1823
The system is continuously excreting water through the pores of the
skin, in the shape of sweat and perspiration. Sweat is the term applied to
such excretion when it is thrown off so rapidly that it gathers and collects
in drops. Perspiration is the term applied when the water is continuously
and unconsciously evaporated from the skin. Perspiration is continuously
being evaporated from the skin, and experiments have shown that when it
is prevented the animal dies. In one of the festivals of ancient Rome a boy
was covered with gold-leaf, from head to foot, in order to represent one of
the gods—he died before the gold-leaf could be removed, the perspiration
being unable to penetrate the varnish and the leaf. Nature’s function was
interrupted and the body being unable to function properly, the soul threw
off its fleshly tenement.
Sweat and perspiration are shown by chemical analysis to be loaded with
the waste products of the system—the refuse and filth of the body—which,
without a sufficient supply of fluids in the system, would remain in the body,
poisoning it and bringing disease and death as a consequence. The repair
work of the body is continually going on, the used-up and wornout tissue
being carried off and replaced by fresh, new material from the blood, which
has absorbed it from the nutrition in the food. This waste must be cast out
of the body, and Nature is quite particular that it shall be gotten rid of—she
does not favor the storing up of garbage in the system. If this waste matter
is allowed to remain in the system it becomes a poison and breeds diseased
conditions—it serves as a breeding place and a feeding ground for germs,
microbes, spores and bacteria, and all the rest of that family. Germs do not
bother the clean and healthy system to any great extent, but let them come
around one of these water-haters, and it finds his or her body full of uncastoff
refuse and filth, and they settle down to business. We will have something
more to say along this line when we come to the subject of Bathing.
Water plays a most important part in the everyday life of the Hatha Yoga.
He uses it internally and externally. He uses it to keep healthy, and he teaches
its value to bring about healthy conditions, where disease has impaired