It is bad in the sea without fresh water - everyone knows this. To the pangs of thirst are added more pangs caused by the very sight of water, which has no end. Full! Is it so disgusting, sea water? A variety of animals live in it, and nothing. Sea worms swarm at the bottom, stars and snails crawl, somewhere under a stone hid, a jellyfish swims above it ... All these animals are true children of the sea. They do not need to specially adapt to sea water, because their ancestors did not live anywhere except the seas.

But other organisms once very long ago got into salt water from fresh water. For example, fish. The blood of fish, like ours, is much fresher than sea water, and the fish have to drink sea water. So is it drinkable? They live in the ocean and invaders from the land - various sea snakes,. Albatrosses and petrels do not see the ground for months. What should they drink if not sea water? Our very close relatives, marine mammals, also live in the ocean. The whale will not look for drink on the shore ...

This is not an idle question. People have been struggling for centuries over how to make sea water suitable for drinking, and even better - for irrigating fields. How much water is wasted! What if marine animals share their secrets with us, suggest a solution to this important problem?

Who is the whale's comrade

If we act according to logic and first of all turn our question to our closest relatives - marine mammals, we will be disappointed. Their secret is simple: they just don't drink.

The life of a whale is much harsher in this sense than that of a camel - at least sometimes it reaches the water and drinks ten buckets at a time. Keith does not know such holidays. Day after day - dry. The whale sips, the whale sips the ocean through its famous mustache, pours a decent clod of food, squeezes it better - and swallows. But he doesn’t drink - you can’t, dry law. Also, say, and: swallows fish, and tries to spit out water.

But you can't live without water. Marine mammals extract it in the same way as desert mammals: they make water themselves.

When fats and carbohydrates are burned, water is formed as one of the reaction products. She replaces the sip that the whale and the camel did not get. Fat saves from the cold, it also saves from thirst. That is why the whales, the inhabitants of the polar waters, and the camels, the inhabitants of the hot deserts, are so rich in fat. The camel stores "water" in its humps, the Central Asian sheep in its fat tail. If there is 120 kg of fat in the hump, then with complete oxidation, 120 liters of water and another million calories of energy will be obtained from it - not so little. Fat is oxidized in the process of metabolism, that is, metabolism, so the water obtained in this way is called "metabolic". A camel survives for a long time without water, not because, as is sometimes thought, it “carries water in its stomach”, but because it stores fat for future use.

Other physiological features of the camel are also remarkable, aimed at conserving water. With us, humans, the temperature does not rise above normal, no matter how hot it is: we water from the surface of the skin and cool ourselves. The camel prefers to walk with a high temperature, but does not spend water on sweating. Only when overheating becomes life-threatening does he begin to sweat.

Animals lose a lot of water in the urine. It would seem that there is no getting away from this, but you need to somehow remove urea from the body - a waste product of protein metabolism. The camel also finds improvement here. In his body, urea starts up for the synthesis of new amino acids. And as a result, it is possible to save a little more water.

Even a camel cannot not drink at all, sometimes he needs to break the dry law, get drunk. But there are animals in the desert that never drink and don’t even eat juicy wet food - they manage with metabolic water alone. These are some rodents. It's hard for them. During the day they sit in burrows so as not to heat up - they have no sweat glands at all. Feces are extremely dry, urine is extremely thick. Even the nose of these animals is extended in order to evaporate less water when exhaling: passing through the long nose, the air has time to cool a little, and the vapor partially settles on the walls of the nasal cavity. Here, water is already counted not in sips and not even in drops. Couples registered! That's who, it turns out, the whale's comrades in misfortune - the inhabitants of the desert. Keith doesn't drink, and neither do they. It turns out that sea water is not suitable for drinking?

Suitable!

And yet the search for physiologists was rewarded. You can drink sea water! An experiment was done: they took a cormorant and poured sea water into its stomach. What will happen? Cormorant sat, shaking his head, he did not look particularly displeased. Why is he shaking his head? They noticed that some liquid was flowing from his nostrils. He jerks his head and drops a drop from his beak.

When the liquid was examined, it turned out that it was a strong salt solution. The cormorant somehow separated the salt from the drunk water and threw it out of the body!

Studies have shown that sea birds and reptiles have a magnificent organ - the salt gland. This is a real desalination plant, very efficient. When such an animal drinks sea water, it is absorbed into the blood, the blood runs to all organs, including the salt gland, and it is desalinated in this gland, sodium chloride, table salt, is expelled from it. Desalination continues until the initial, normal salinity of the blood is established. It's like drinking fresh water.

Salt glands are located on the head. Their ducts usually enter the nasal cavity. Only in tortoises fluid flows out near the eyes, and when the gland works, it seems that the tortoise is crying. Finally, it became clear why sea turtles shed tears when they come ashore to lay their eggs. All fabulous interpretations had to be left to the children. Nothing hurts the turtles, nothing is bitter to them, they do not think of any horrors. They just have a desalination device.

Sensations come and go, but scientific problems remain. Of course, it is very good that we have learned about the existence of the salt gland. But it would be much more important to know how it works.

Let's see what her job is about. Each cell of the gland on one side comes into contact with the blood, the other - with the fluid that fills the duct of the gland. There is a lot of salt in this liquid, less in the blood. It would be natural for the salt to move from the duct into the blood, that is, for its cells to become equal on both sides. And salt goes in the opposite direction - from where there is so little, it goes to where there is a lot!

If you put a herring in water, salt will go out of the herring into the water, every housewife who has ever had to soak herring knows this. If a fresh cucumber is poured with brine, the salt will go from the brine into the cucumber. From there, where there is a lot, to where there is little, - as they say, along the concentration gradient. And in the salt gland, the movement is reversed.

For such pumping, work must be done, energy must be expended. This is what the living cells of the salt gland do; the energy they expend can be calculated. But how this energy of the cell is realized, what is the mechanism for pumping sodium chloride - this is a question.

Backwards

And another question: why do seabirds and turtles have desalination cells, but we humans do not? We have such cells, that's what's funny!

Excellent desalters that can pump salt against a concentration gradient. The whole trouble is that in our country they are turned in the wrong end in the blood! In order to be able to drink sea water, desalination plants must drive salt out of the blood, and they inject salt into the blood in our country.

Of course, you can only call it a disaster as a joke. This is not our misfortune, but salvation, otherwise we would not be able to drink fresh water. And we would hardly agree to drink sea water alone!

With each sip of water drunk and then removed from the blood, the body loses salt, because it, along with water, is carried away into the urine. But human cells can only exist in a salty environment, the loss of salt is deadly. This is where desalination cells get in the way of the escaping salt, which take the salt from the urine and pump it back into the blood. Only a small part of the salt is lost in the urine.

When the work of our distillers is disturbed, a person becomes seriously ill. This happens with the so-called Addison's disease, a severe hormonal disorder. Sodium ions leave the body, and their concentration in the blood falls dangerously. Previously, they knew only one salvation - they drank salt water. Now doctors have good hormonal agents, with the help of which the work of the kidney distillers is getting better again.

This means that although our body is provided with reliable distillers, they are not able to help us drink sea water. Human physiology is designed for drinking simple, fresh water. Our distant ancestors could not take into account that in millions of years people will need to sail the seas and oceans and they will face the problem of water.

General - in various

And, nevertheless, interest in the unknown principle on which desalination plants operate in wildlife can hardly run out. How often people have become convinced that the solution of some problem by living organisms can be more ingenious, more economical than in technology! Doesn't the same fate await the problem of sea water desalination? It will not be easy to reveal the mechanism of biological distillers, but let's try to at least outline a search strategy.

From the vast experience accumulated by cell physiology, one very useful idea can be drawn: no matter how unusual, special complex function this or that organ performs, its cells do not have any properties that are fundamentally different from what is in any other cells. In short, in all cases a new quality of the organ is achieved by a combination of general, universal mechanisms.

The work of such a wonderful organ as the salt gland is another confirmation of this. general principle physiology. It is fully provided by the mechanism inherent in every animal cell, namely the mechanism by which the cell exchanges its sodium for extracellular potassium. This is one of the most common and fundamental phenomena of cell physiology.

The vital importance of such an exchange for cells is not difficult to explain. In fact, as a result of the exchange, the protoplasm in its ionic composition becomes sharply different from the extracellular medium. On one side of the cell membrane (inside the cell) there is little sodium, on the other - a lot. It is enough to give the green light to sodium, as it will burst into the cell like an avalanche. The whole situation inside the cell instantly changes: the cell begins to work in a new mode.

Transferring a cell from one state to another with the help of a sodium flow is the same general mechanism as, say, cell reproduction using an apparatus. In order to obtain an ion flow at the right moment, it is necessary to maintain the difference in concentrations all the time - to store for the future the potential energy of ion gradients. This is why sodium ions are always pumped out of the cells. This is done by a special biochemical system - the "sodium pump".

Whether they run along a nerve fiber, whether muscle cells contract, whether an electric stingray strikes an enemy with a high-voltage blow, or simply gland cells pour out their secret, each time the case begins with a sodium avalanche, the possibility of which is provided in advance by the operation of the pump.

Of course, it took some ingenuity from nature to use this intracellular pump to combine a pump that pumps sodium from one extracellular environment to another - after all, this is how the salt gland of a cormorant or the desalination device of our kidneys works. But it's still a relatively easy task. Physiologists easily solve it on paper. It is much more difficult to understand the mechanism of operation of the cellular pump itself.

But if the course of our reasoning was correct, then this means that the entire huge army of scientists involved in the physiology of nerve and muscle cells, willy-nilly, is also working on the problem of biological desalinators.

Can you drink sea water? This question has been answered in the negative for a long time. The fact is that the human body is not adapted to removing excess salts that would come with sea water. Marine fish and birds have special glands through which brine drops are released. By the way, earlier, when they did not know this, they could not keep, for example, albatrosses in the zoo. It turns out that the water for them must be salted, because special glands work all the time, and if the albatross drinks fresh water, he will die from a lack of salts.

In the instructions to the crews of sea vessels, there has long been a point that in the absence of fresh water, you cannot drink sea water. However, for Lately opinion about sea water has changed somewhat. Facts have become known about people who drank sea water of low concentration and remained alive. For example, during the Great Patriotic War one soldier was carried away in a boat far from the coast in the Sea of ​​Azov. He had no food, no walkie-talkie, no fresh water. For more than a month he drifted on the sea, drank salt water, ate raw fish and remained alive.

In seas with low salinity, it can be drunk if necessary. On ships, sometimes they even began to add it to food to prevent diseases in the tropics. Doctors recommend taking sea water orally for some gastric diseases (of course, not for everyone and in certain doses).

An interesting, although, at first glance, strange, circumstance is the almost exact coincidence of the percentage composition of salts in sea water with the composition of human blood. However, if we recall that the primary forms of life originated hundreds of millions of years ago in the ocean, and later highly organized creatures descended from them, then such a similarity will not seem surprising.

Water is the basis of life on our planet. No living being can live long without it. Although in nature there are species that do without moisture for quite a long time, but in the end, if they do not find a source, they will die. 80% of the entire Earth is covered with water, but only 3% of it is suitable for human consumption. So why can't you drink sea water?

Favorite vacation

The sea and ocean beckon a person to them, especially in very hot weather. Everyone loves to come to the big water, lie in the sun, cool off in the coolness of the sea breeze and swim. But when you are thirsty, not a single person goes to the seashore to fill a bottle and quench their thirst. Yes, and while swimming, this water probably got into everyone's mouth, and they immediately spat it out, went ashore and drank clean fresh water. Why is this happening? Can you drink sea water? No, it is strictly prohibited due to its specific composition.

Salt concentration

One liter of liquid from the sea contains about 40 grams of salt, while a person should consume at least 3 liters per day. But at the same time, he can digest salt no more than 20 grams per day. Simple mathematics shows that if you drink 3 liters of sea liquid, you will overdose, which will lead to very serious consequences. The kidneys are an organ that processes all the minerals that have entered the body. The main routes of waste excretion are urination and sweating. If someone decides to experiment and take a sip of salt water, then the kidneys will have to work in a mode of increased complexity. Such a huge load they will not be able to. The salt that remains after this liquid must be extracted from the body. And this will happen only if it is dissolved in fresh water. But there is nowhere to take it from, so for survival it will be pumped out of the tissues. The fluid will become sorely lacking, and dehydration will set in. This will lead to the gradual failure of all vital systems of the body and, if the situation is not quickly corrected, to death. That's why you shouldn't drink salty sea water.

Chlorides and sulfates

In addition to salt, which will dry out a person from the inside, the composition of the sea fluid includes a variety of biogenic substances (metals, sulfates, chlorides), which must also be processed and removed. But here, too, there is a problem, because this process also requires fresh water. And its number is decreasing very quickly. Cells are clogged with these substances, which become poison for them. They slowly begin to die. Therefore, the question of whether it is possible to drink sea water in order to survive can hardly be answered in the affirmative.

Sodium sulfate

In addition to the above, there is another compound in the marine fluid that is worth mentioning separately. It's sodium sulfate. In medicine, it is known for its strong laxative effect. This will lead to even greater dehydration of the body, as a result of which the poisoning will only worsen. If this process is not stopped in time, then the person will go crazy, and the internal organs will die from irreversible changes. And this is another answer to the question of why they do not drink sea water.

Dangerous experiment

Although every self-respecting traveler or scientist knows about the dangers of drinking liquid from the depths of the sea, there are daredevils who refute all previously known studies. One of them was Alain Bombard, who tested for himself what would happen if you drink sea water. This man was a doctor and a biologist. He was trying to find ways to help people survive a shipwreck in the open ocean. He himself crossed the Atlantic in 65 days. This period was very difficult for him. He survived only by fishing. The fish served him both as food and as a source of drinking water. He personally designed and manufactured a special press that squeezed life-giving moisture out of marine life. But he decided to go even further. Every day he drank liquid from the ocean in small portions. This led to very severe dehydration, and by the end of the trip, Alain Bomber had lost as much as 25 kilograms. Thus, he was able to prove that a small amount of sea water daily may not kill a person.

Ocean dwellers

If salty liquid is so dangerous, then why do fish feel great in it? Why can't people drink sea water, but for them it is their home? The tissues of these creatures contain salt in very small quantities. This gives them the opportunity to absorb fresh water when eating each other. In addition, they have an excellent salt excretion system, and the kidneys have absolutely nothing to do with it. They are very small in fish and do not play a special role. They were replaced by a desalination machine. It is located in the gills. Cells, which are only found in marine life, purify the blood from salt and bring it out along with the mucus. This adaptation provides the fish with a long and carefree life in the depths of the ocean.

A vital necessity

From the foregoing, it is completely clear why sea water cannot be drunk. But what if a person finds himself in the middle of the ocean without a supply of fresh liquid? You can follow the example of Alain Bombard and squeeze water out of fish that still need to be caught. The second option is water desalination. This procedure can be carried out in several ways. These are distillation, separation, freezing, electrodialysis, direct and reverse osmosis. Naturally, in the middle of the ocean it is simply impossible to conduct most of them. But something needs to be done. In order for the water to become fresh, it must be poured into a deep dish, preferably dark in color. This container is lowered into a plastic bag and tightly tied. The sun, which is abundant in the ocean, will heat this vessel and evaporate the water. The steam will settle on the walls of the bag and flow down. And if this homemade device is lowered overboard, then the condensation process will go much faster.

First aid

60% of our body consists of water, so the loss of most of it leads to very dangerous consequences. What should you do if you are around someone who is showing symptoms of dehydration? Everything is very simple: you need to give him a drink, but he should do it in small portions. But you can't get by with just water. You also need to replenish the supply of glucose, as it will help the rapid absorption of fluid. This formula of salvation was developed back in the 1960s, but it has not changed much to this day. Therefore, the water that the victim drinks should be slightly sweetened. After a strong desiccation of the body, a whole range of procedures and the intake of many drugs are needed to help restore damaged cells and tissues.

Thus, speaking about why sea water cannot be drunk, it is worth mentioning the terrible consequences of such actions. It poisons the body, kills all the internal organs and drives you crazy. The amount of salt that can enter the body with one liter of sea water is 2 times the amount that human cells can handle. Therefore, it is not worth experimenting with this.

Sea water is the entire vast mass of liquid in the oceans and seas of all the globe. Although the sea waters of the entire planet communicate with each other, the content of salts and impurities in different places may vary slightly.

What is included in it

The chemical composition of salty sea water includes almost the entire periodic table. Chemical substances, elements and their compounds in the form of salts are washed out of the rocks of the seabed and gradually dissolve in the ocean.

Therefore, the salinity of water (as density and temperature) is distributed vertically - from the bottom to the surface. Minerals are contained in the form of ions, so sea water is an ionized, slightly alkaline solution.

1. In sea water, in addition to the usual oxygen and hydrogen (H 2 O - pure water), contains 3.5% salts (i.e. 35 g of salt per 1 liter of water).
2. The largest amount is common table salt (NaCI) at 27.2 g, which explains the salty taste.
3. 3.8 g of magnesium chloride (MgCI 2) and 1.7 g of magnesium sulfate (MgSO 4) give the "marine solution" a bitter taste.
4. The share of calcium sulfate (CaSO 4) accounts for 1.3 g, potassium salts (KCI) - a little less than a gram.

In total, these salts make up 99.5% of all mineral salts, while the remaining chemical compounds account for only 0.5%.

It must be said that the high content of useful minerals in sea water is too exaggerated, judging by its chemical composition. Ordinary salt water is a solution of purified sodium chloride NaCI and is devoid of other minerals.

To drink or not sea water?

In addition to the fact that sea water is rather unpleasant in taste, bitter-salty, it is very harmful to the body, you can’t drink it!

All fluid that enters the body is "filtered" by the kidneys. The huge salt content in sea water will force the kidneys to work with an increased load, very quickly lead to the formation of stones - the kidneys cannot cope with such an amount of salt.

In some bays and lagoons, into which the fresh waters of the rivers flow, the salt content is much lower than the average. In extreme, vital situations, it is permissible to use lightly salted water for a short period - 5-7 days.

Is it possible to quench your thirst with sea water

Perhaps everyone has ever heard and knows for sure that you can’t drink salty sea water. But still, unforeseen circumstances happen when people find themselves on the high seas without a supply of fresh water (or some other emergency). What to do in this case? It is impossible to quench your thirst with ocean waters and you cannot drink from the sea!

100 g of sea water contains such an amount of salts that the body needs 160 g of pure fresh water to remove the salts. In the absence of fresh water, the body mobilizes its own reserves, and dehydration will occur even faster.

The more a person drinks liquids from the sea, the more the body loses fluids, intoxication (poisoning) with harmful impurities will occur, for example, magnesium sulfate, which is part of the salts, causes a severe upset of the gastrointestinal tract.

The World Health Organization has repeatedly conducted various studies, all of which confirmed that it is strictly forbidden to drink sea water to quench thirst, as it destroys the body.

Efficacy for skin and hair

How harmful salt-saturated sea water is for internal use, it is so useful for external use - baths, face masks, and just swimming in the sea has a beneficial effect on the skin, nails, hair.

Thousands of sanatoriums, resorts, clinics work on the use of useful qualities natural salts and minerals. Mud clinics are especially effective, using saturated silt mud for the treatment of a number of diseases and general healing of the body.

The list of trace elements that have a beneficial effect on human health includes 26: bromine, potassium, iodine, calcium, sodium, magnesium, etc. Sea baths strengthen immune system, improve metabolism, cleanse pores and promote the removal of toxins. Swimming in the sea hardens the body, 10-12 days at the resort provide vitality for the whole year!

After swimming in the sea, there is no need to rush to take a fresh shower, you need to give time for the beneficial minerals to soak into the skin, nails and hair. From sea water, nails stop exfoliating, crumbling.

No less beneficial is the effect of sea water on the scalp and hairline. The ionic form of trace elements contributes to their rapid assimilation by hair scales, a quick effect is noted: the sebaceous glands are cleansed and fat is absorbed, the skin is disinfected and hair is strengthened.

Getting fresh water

The oceans occupy more than 70% of the globe. Only 3% of the Earth's surface is allocated to fresh water. Mankind is already facing the problem of its shortage in many regions of the planet, so the desalination of sea water is one of the most pressing issues.

There are a number of companies in the world that, using modern high-tech methods, have achieved high results in this industry. In a number of countries there are powerful installations for desalination of water, which is successfully used for the needs of the population.

Water desalination is carried out in different ways:

• chemical;
• electrochemical (dialysis);
• ultrafiltration method;
• freezing;
• distillation.

Each of the methods is used in various spheres of human activity.

Conclusion

1. Sea water is saturated with mineral salts and other chemicals.
2. Sea water in its pure form is not suitable for drinking, it can cause severe intoxication and dehydration.
3. The high content of useful trace elements has a beneficial effect on the skin and hair.
4. Desalination of sea water will help meet the human need for fresh water.

In contact with

The human body is almost 70% composed of liquid media. Most of them (up to 50%) are inside the cells, and the rest is in the extracellular fluid. Most of the fluid is found in the cells of the gray matter of the brain, kidneys, and heart muscle. Therefore, water supply for those in distress at sea is in the first place. After all, you can not drink salty sea water.

Water is involved in diverse and continuous metabolic processes. The loss of water by the body by only a few percent leads to its vital activity, and depletion by more than 10% causes serious disorders in the functional activity of organs and systems, causing death of a person.

In areas with moderate temperatures, with relatively limited muscle activity, the need for water is 1.5–2.0 liters per day. At high air temperatures, especially in the tropics, it exceeds 4–6 or more liters per day.

How long can a person do without the "juice of life", as the outstanding Italian scientist Leonardo da Vinci figuratively called water? According to the American physiologist E.F. Adolf, the maximum duration of a person's stay without water largely depends on the ambient temperature and the mode of physical activity.

So, at rest in the shade, at a temperature of 16-23 degrees, a person can not drink for 10 days. At an air temperature of 26 degrees, this period is reduced to 9 days, at 29 degrees - up to 7 days, at 33 degrees - up to 5 days, at 36 degrees - up to 3 days. And finally, at an air temperature of 39 degrees at rest, a person can not drink for no more than 2 days. Muscular activity shortens these periods.

The most terrible test for those in distress at sea and those who found themselves on the means was and remains the lack of fresh water. Indeed, a person can still somehow fight hunger. Even without special gear, there is always hope to catch a few fish or find floating ones. However, food only increases thirst.

Is it possible to provide water supply through the use of salty sea water by the victims?

From time immemorial, there has been an opinion among sailors that salt water causes insanity and hastens death. It entered the consciousness of people so firmly that many of them died in the vast expanses of water, not even trying to quench their thirst with ocean moisture.

One of the first to disprove the ingrained postulate that drinking sea water is a sure way to suicide was the Soviet naval doctor P. Yeresko. He argued that sea water is perfectly drinkable. The doctor proceeded from the fact that a person consumes 8–10 g of salt per day. Therefore, if a person in distress at sea drinks about 1 liter of salt water per day, he has a chance to stay alive.

In favor of drinking sea water, the incident that happened to US Air Force Lieutenant D. Smith also testifies. In July 1943, he was shot down by the Japanese over the Pacific Ocean and ended up on a single rubber raft near Guadalcanal. The sailor lasted 20 days without fresh water and was picked up by an American military transport in a satisfactory condition. For 5 days he drank one pint (0.473 liters) of sea water daily. In order not to feel its unpleasant taste, Smith smeared the oral mucosa with the fat of the bird he had killed.

A voluntary experiment conducted by the French physician A. Bombard on himself also testifies in favor of drinking sea water. In his book Naufrage volontaire (Voluntary Shipwreck), published in 1953 in Paris, he states that drinking small amounts of salt water (500-600 ml in 10 doses) for 5-6 days can be beneficial for shipwrecked.

Finally, one of the last experiments on fasting and drinking sea water in natural conditions was carried out in 1982 by a teacher at the Department of Physical Education of the Leningrad Higher Engineering School named after. Admiral Makarov V. Sidorenko. During the cruising yacht competition for the Baltic Sea Cup, he went hungry for 21 days, consuming up to half a liter of sea water per day.

Undoubtedly, the moral factor is a powerful force, but there are also objective laws of physiology. The Medical Research Council of Great Britain studied the results of 448 shipwrecks in the British Navy during the period from 1940 to 1944 and found that drinking sea water in many cases was the cause of death. Of the 143 sailors left without fresh water, 57 people died, that is, approximately 33%. Of the 684 people with a daily fresh water ration of 120 g, 165 died, i.e. 24%. Of the 1314 sailors with a daily ration of up to 2230 g, 96 people died - 7%. Increasing the daily allowance to 340 g reduced mortality to 1%.

The experts came to the conclusion that salty sea water should not be drunk. On boats where sailors used it, the mortality rate reached 38.8%, while on life-saving equipment where sea water was not drunk, it was only 3.3%.

The effect of salty sea water on the human body.

Where is the truth? After the recommendations of A. Bombard and J. Ory appeared in the open press, the belief began to spread among sailors that the harmfulness of drinking sea water was greatly exaggerated. In this regard, in 1959, the IMCO Committee on the Safety of Navigation turned to the World Health Organization (WHO) with a request to give a competent opinion on this issue.

Prominent experts on the problem of survival in the ocean, the biologists and physiologists R. A. Makens and F. B. Baskerville from Great Britain invited to Geneva, the Swiss J. Fabre, the Frenchman Ch. Labori and the American A. V. Wolf, finally delivered the final verdict: sea ​​water has a destructive effect on the human body. It causes deep disorders of many organs and systems.

Indeed, human body usually contains about 1% mineral salts. Their concentration in the body is regulated by work, and since ocean water has about 3-4% salts, instead of washing out harmful, waste substances from the body, sea water also clogs it with its salts. In order to remove the latter, the kidneys use the "water depot" of the body, dehydrating it.

Such a process is very dangerous, and the brain reacts most severely to it. People who could not stand the thirst and began to drink salty sea water have a mental disorder, delirium. In the end, excessive stress on the kidneys can completely disable them, leading to death.

Is it possible or not to quench your thirst and drink salty sea water?

However, how then to explain the cases with P. Yeresko, D. Smith, A. Bombar, and V. Sidorenko? Do they refute the formidable conclusions of WHO experts? It turns out not! It is known that in different parts of the oceans, the salinity of water is not the same. The Atlantic Ocean contains approximately 3.5–3.58 ppm salts. In the Pacific Ocean - somewhat less - 3.46-3.51 ppm. More "fresh" water in the Black Sea is 0.7-0.85 ppm, and in the Baltic - only 0.2-0.5 ppm. From here, it is clear even to the uninitiated - the water of the Black and Baltic Seas can be drunk (of course, only in situations) without much harm.

In addition, US medical specialists reanalyzed the incident with D. Smith and found that the pilot did not survive because of the sea water. It turned out that he drank a lot of fresh water before the sortie, and the fluid content in his body was above the norm. In addition, on the 5th day after he began to drink salty sea water, it rained heavily over the ocean, and D. Smith drank plenty of fresh water. The doctors who examined the pilot came to the conclusion that if the heavenly moisture had not fallen, then the further use of sea water would have ended in a tragic outcome for the lieutenant.

A. Bombar, as follows from his book "Overboard of his own free will", during the voyage also drank not only salty sea water. Every morning he wiped the surface of his rubber boat with a sponge and thus obtained a fresh condensate. In addition to him, he quenched his thirst with the blood of dolphins, birds and juice squeezed from fish. Starting on the 23rd day of his journey, it rained daily over his Heretic.

Thus, it was convincingly shown that the experience of D. Smith, A. Bombard, W. Ullis and others, with all its merits, does not prove the possibility of long-term survival at sea by drinking sea water, but only indicates the possibility of collecting enough water for drinking . Salty sea water with a high salt content should not be drunk even in exceptional cases. Here it is appropriate to quote the statement of H. Lindemann:

“Since the existence of mankind, everyone has known that it is impossible to drink salty sea water. But here in Europe there was a message about a study stating the opposite, provided that the body is not yet dehydrated. In the newspaper forest, it flourished and received a warm response from amateurs. Of course, salty sea water can be drunk, and poison can be taken in appropriate doses. But recommending that shipwrecked people drink salty sea water is a crime to say the least.”

Water ration in conditions of autonomous navigation on collective life-saving appliances.

In conditions of autonomous navigation, the water ration can be considered a determining factor in the survival of people using life-saving appliances. The longest voyage without drinking water lasted 15 days. But this is a kind of record, usually people die much earlier. Therefore, rational rationing of water rations is of paramount importance for the victims.

With a single use of 1 liter of water, a significant part of it (from 16 to 58%) is excreted through the kidneys. Meanwhile, if you drink the same amount of it in portions of 85 g, then its total loss through the kidneys will be only from 5 to 11%. From this it is obvious that with limited water supplies, it is necessary to divide the daily norm into four to eight portions. Drinking water in these cases is recommended in small sips.

However, no matter how economically fresh water is used, there will come a time when its reserves run out. Drinking salty sea water on life rafts and boats, as already noted, is strictly prohibited. The question arises, how to quench your thirst?

Instructions and memos for those in distress at sea recommend gathering dew at night and replenishing fresh water supplies with heavenly moisture, arguing that rains in the tropics are not uncommon. But is it possible in practice? Let us turn to reliable facts, no one doubts.

A. Bombar was able to start collecting rainwater only on the 23rd day of his voyage. The American traveler W. Ullis took advantage of the heavenly moisture only on the 76th day. For 2.5 months of the stay of the French travelers E. De Bishop and A. Braen in the Pacific Ocean, not a single decent rain fell on the Tahiti Nui raft. These testimonies make it clear that rain and dew are sources that cannot be relied upon with certainty.

What should be the way out? When sailing in low latitudes, WHO experts recommend:

1. Do not drink water on the first day after the accident.
2. Drink no more than 500 ml of water per day. This amount is enough for 5-6 days of swimming and will not cause harmful effects on the body.
3. Reduce the daily rate to 100 ml if water supplies are running low.
4. Never, under any circumstances, drink salty sea water.

IN last years treatment of various diseases with urine (urine) has spread among the general population. The authors of the method convince of its absolute safety. Whether this is so, time will tell. However, we consider it our duty to warn you: in conditions of autonomous navigation, quenching your thirst with urine is a direct path to suicide! In this case, it can be useful only for external use as a remedy for