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Hatha Yoga: The Yogi Philosophy of Physical Well-Being1824
the natural functioning of the body. We will touch upon the use of water
in several parts of this book. We wish to impress upon our students the
importance of the subject, begging them not to pass it by as unimportant
because it is so simple. Seven out of ten of our readers need this advice. Do
not pass it by. This means YOU.
Both Perspiration and sweat are necessary, also, to dissipate the
excessive bodily heat by their evaporation, and thus keep down the bodily
temperature to a normal degree. The perspiration and sweat also (as we
have stated) assist in carrying off the waste products of the system—the skin
being, in fact, a supplementary organ to the kidneys. And without water the
skin would, of course, be unable to perform this function.
The normal adult excretes about one and one-half to two pints of water in
twenty-four hours, in the shape of sweat and perspiration, but men working
in rolling-mills, etc., excrete much greater quantities. One can endure a much
greater degree of heat in a dry atmosphere than in a moist one, because in
the former the perspiration is evaporated so rapidly that the heat is more
readily and rapidly dissipated.
Quite a quantity of water is exhaled through the lungs. The urinary organs
pass off a large quantity, in performing their functions, about three pints in
twenty-four hours being the amount voided by the normal adult. And all
this has to be replenished, in order to keep the physical machinery going
right.
Water is needed by the system for a number of purposes. One of its
purposes (as above stated) is to counteract and regulate the combustion
constantly going on in our bodies, arising from the chemical action of the
oxygen extracted by the lungs from the air, coming in contact with the
carbon arising from the food. This combustion going on in millions of cells
produces the animal heat. The water passing through the system regulates
this combustion, so that it does not become too intense.
Water is also used by the body as a common carrier. It flows through
the arteries and veins, and conveys the blood corpuscles and elements of