Brass Vessel

[aquavita]

Interesting article on brass being used for it's ability to retard & eliminate water borne illnesses.


Made in India: Water in brass vessel 'healthy'
PTI Apr 12, 2005, 11.09PM IST

NEW YORK: Ancient Indian wisdom that drinking water should be stored in brass vessels for good health has now been proved scientifically by researchers.

Microbiologists say that water stored in brass containers can help combat many water-borne diseases and should be used in developing countries rather than their cheaper alternatives, plastic containers. Water-borne diseases remain a serious threat in many poor regions of the world, with around two million children dying each year from diarrhoea.



Efforts to provide safe drinking water have had difficulty reaching remote areas.

Rob Reed, who led the brass study, was quoted by the Nature magazine as saying that even in places with basic water-purification systems, people often opted for riskier wells under trees because the water was cooler.

Nature said on a recent trip to India, Reed, a microbiologist at Northumbria University in Newcastle, had witnessed villagers storing water in brass vessels.

He also heard an interesting piece of local wisdom: people believe that traditional brass water containers offer protection against sickness. The idea intrigued Reed, who was in Asia investigating the anti-bacterial effects of sunlight on water.

He has now found that bacteria are indeed less likely to thrive in brass water pots than in earthenware or plastic ones.

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"It's one of the traditional ideas of water treatment and we were able to find a microbiological basis for it,'' he was quoted by Nature as saying.

Reed, with his colleagues Puja Tandon and Sanjay Chhibber, carried out two series of experiments. In Britain, the researchers filled brass and earthenware vessels with a diluted culture of escherichia coli bacteria, which can cause illnesses such as dysentery.

They then counted the surviving bacteria after 6, 24 and 48 hours. A similar test was carried out in India using naturally contaminated water.

"The amount of live e-coli in the brass vessels dropped dramatically over time, and after 48 hours they fell to undetectable levels,'' Reed told the Society for General Microbiology's meeting.

The key to the result is copper, which can disrupt biological systems, Reed explained.

[just sayin]

Interesting! Thank you, Aquavita.

[dakotasnake]

as a sidenote i read that as we no most brass in the us is now coated with zink instead of lead, a very thin mist on the outside. one study examaning hair from several particapants showed that the people with higher levells of zinc were also found to be more intellegent.. hummm im waiting for them to come out with a zinc drink.

[DAD300]

Zinc drinks, homeopathic salts and throat sprays are already at your local Wally World and drug store dakotasnake. And one of the stated purposes is to kill bacteria!

[Steam Drip]

Does brass affect the sufides like copper does? I got lots of brass but big peices of copper are hard to find.

[heartcut]

Brass is typically 40-75% copper and the rest usually zinc. It will form sulphur salts with suphides just like copper. I'm a little scared of the zinc, though. A little bit of zinc is good, but a little more than the good amount will make you want to lie down for a long time.

[Bozzy D]

Brass is typically 40-75% copper and the rest usually zinc. It will form sulphur salts with suphides just like copper. I'm a little scared of the zinc, though. A little bit of zinc is good, but a little more than the good amount will make you want to lie down for a long time.

Amen to that, Our local river is so polluted with zinc from the local smelt, that any species of fish living in it is unsafe to eat and any fish that runs up the river (salmon) is considered safe to eat in small quantities only. Until recently it was considered a trip to hospital to swim in it (for various other reasons as well)