XVIII.

There is another very important item to be considered in the dietary of this prison, and that is the quality and quantity of the water furnished for potable purposes. "Water," says Milne Edwards, "is an aliment, as well as sugar and fibrine; for it is indispensable for the nutrition of the body, and, by whatever means it arrives in the economy, its _role_ is always the same."

The water consumed in the prison was obtained from the brook, and from the few wells or springs within the stockade. The volume of water in the brook was quite sufficient to furnish all the drinking water desired, if it had been introduced into the stockade by means of sluices. As it was, the course of the stream was left to nature, and no effort made to prevent its defilement by the camps situated farther up, or by the bake-house located close by. All the camps on the declivities about Andersonville were drained into this stream. Some few wells were sunk in the prison which yielded scanty supplies, and there were also a few springs undefiled; but the quality of water everywhere was surface water, tinged and tainted with the impurities of the soil and the infections of the collected filth. The thirst, which was excessive among the prisoners, could only be slaked by drinking the impure waters. Yet a very little care on the part of the rebel authorities would have increased the comfort of the prisoners in this respect, and prevented the loss of life to a very considerable degree.

"The preservation of potable water," writes Felix Jacquot, "is certainly one of the capital points of hygiene."

"I am sometimes disposed to think," states Dr. Letheby, the health officer of London, "that impure water is before impure air as one of the most powerful causes of disease." In cold climates slight impurities in the drinking water are not of vital importance; but in the tropics, and the adjacent regions, the least decayed vegetable or animal matter renders it injurious and unpalatable, and often is the determining cause of disease, especially enteric, to a fearful degree.