Jim Elbrecht > wrote:

-snip-
>
>A gas operated refrigerator [in use before the Civil War though not in
>many *homes*] made *pure* cold water. I can't remember the
>essayist- but there was a great article in some 19th century magazine
>about how much healthier 'refrigerated cold water' was.
>

I couldn't immediately come up with that article. But this one is
interesting
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cg...anu0001-7%3A83

http://tinyurl.com/1869refrigerator

A portable ice box- that they called a refrigerator in an 1869 edition
of "The Manufacturer and Builder" Volume 0001 Issue 7 (July 1869) /
p216. "A Cabinet Refrigerator"

xxxxx
A Cabinet Refrigerator.
A FEW days ago, while passing up Sixth avenue, we saw at the store of
Mr. Lesley No. 605a very neat and useful little article with which the
readers of our home department can hardly fail to be pleased. It is
nothing more or less than a small, portable refrigerator, which can be
carried from room to room as circumstances may require. It has a
reservoir for ice at the top, with a silver-plated faucet for drawing
off the water. Below the ice is the cooling apartment, which is
chilled to a low degree by the ice above. This apartment is provided
with a door having a good lock. The sides and door are filled with
charcoal, and the whole article is beautifully grained in oak. For the
sick-room, hospitals, the sideboard, and for people boarding who can
not have access to a large refrigerator, this little cabinet affair is
especially useful. Indeed, it is so small, portable, and convenient,
that it would make a capital addition to a suit of chamber furniture;
for oft in the stilly night would it be found useful, when one is not
in the mood or in the costume to descend to the kitchen for a
refreshing drink.
xxxx

I guess it wasn't important to distinguish refrigerator from ice box
until the former were a bit more popular.

Jim