An immense amount of rubbish has been written during the last few decades concerning the supposed good effect of excessive water-drinking on the human economy. Something like a quarter of a century ago a London physician by the name of Haig brought forward and strenuously advocated the view that a large number of minor ailments were the result of the presence in the body of excessive quantities of uric acid; applying the well known fact that the substance just mentioned requires a large amount of water to dissolve it he conceived the idea that the proper remedy was to flood the body with enormous quantities of liquids, and thus, as it were, wash the offending substance out of the system. So plausible did he make this theory appear that it was accepted very largely by medical men, who in turn taught it to the general public. Within recent times it has been fortunately shown that Haig's theory was wholly chimerical, and that quantities of uric acid greatly in excess of the normal amount could collect in the body, or might be injected into the blood-vessels, without the least harm resulting; thus, at one blow, this widely accepted theory was annihilated, and there now remains no sort of reason for attempting to remove uric acid by excessive water-drinking, or by other means. It is fortunate that the uric-acid theory has been disproved, for the excessive use of water is not only unnecessary, but highly injurious to the digestive organs, particularly when the fluids are taken at or about meals. Experience has shown that excessive stomach-acidity, which is the most common form of indigestion, is in a large degree dependent on the taking of liquids while eating, and that even in those who are healthy any more than small quantities cannot be looked upon as being wholesome. In dyspeptics liquids seem to act in a hurtful way in several different directions. For example, where persons constantly take liquids while eating the necessity of properly chewing the food is largely done away with; in addition to this the mere presence of water in the stomach seems to tend to the production of increased acidity, for it has often been observed by the writer that even where food was eaten dry indigestion would follow in many dyspeptics if they took water just before or immediately after eating.