Water supply in relation to disease

When we consider that water covers some four-fifths of the surface of the earth, and that the health of men depends upon its free and lavish use; when we consider again that, though the vast reservoirs of water are, for a wise purpose, salt and useless for drinking purposes, Nature has taken upon herself the work of a great distiller, we may well deplore the folly and apathy of communities of men who allow what was offered to them for their benefit to return thanklessly in waste to the ocean from whence it came. Nature has made the clouds her carriers of the purest distilled water, which has left all its salts behind, and then deposits her precious burden in the form of snow, or sleet, or rain, upon the tops of the mountain ranges and table-lands.