MEDICINAL AND DIETETIC PROPERTIES.

Salt, except by the ignorant, is generally acknowledged to be a condiment, not only requisite as an adjunct to food, but also for the animal economy; this fact is not to be lost sight of, and therefore I lay much stress on it, and in the next chapter we shall see that physiologically it holds no mean position amongst those other substances which are found in the human body.

There are a number of facts of physiological import, at which it is necessary to glance, and which are indissolubly connected with its medicinal and dietetic properties; and there are various others illustrative of the absolute necessity of salt, which are self-evident to those who think and observe, and which we will now proceed to lay before the reader.

In human blood, salt is a most important constituent; where there is disease, there is a diminution of salt, with corresponding nervous depression, and the individual experiences a want of power: if this want continues for any length of time, the health is gradually undermined; the blood loses its richness and is deprived of its vitalising property; various symptoms finally show themselves, and probably develop into some phenomena of a serious significance—all, indeed, indicative that the system is deficient of a most important essential in its economy. These symptoms may prognosticate the approach of various diseased conditions, partly owing to the habits, constitution, or surroundings of the patient. In all morbid conditions, and particularly in those which owe their origin to an unhealthy state of the blood, we may, to a considerable extent, be certain that there is a deficiency of the chloride of sodium. In proof of this, patients never, as a rule, object to salt; they actually relish it. Why? Because there is a deficiency, and nature intuitively excites the desire. We often find that patients refuse sugar; indeed the very mention of it produces a feeling of nausea and extreme disgust: with salt it is entirely different; they take it, and, in most cases, enjoy it in the same way that fever-stricken patients long for, and relish, a draught of cold water, if they are able to obtain it.

Were the human race once deprived of the chloride of sodium, even for a limited period of time, we should not only lose a natural healthful incentive for our food, but disease, with all her attendant miseries, would spread with such relentless impetuosity as would defy, and even paralyse, the efforts of the most skillful physician, the ingenuity of the surgeon, and the scientific improvements and hygienic precautions of the sanitarian.53 The strength and vigour of manhood would fade as if blasted by disease, food would act as a poison; the blood would not be replenished with the salt which it requires, and consequently our skins would soon be covered with corruption; our cattle would die, our crops would be nipped in the bud; the air would be full of offensive insects; the soil would become foul and barren, the sea a waste of stagnant waters; and all the beautiful productions of nature would wither and decay, and our glorious earth would degenerate into a hideous solitude, solely inhabited, very probably, by monsters horrible to behold, and more repulsive than those gigantic reptiles which once roamed by the dreary marshes of an incomplete world.

Those who take pleasure in decrying the inimitable works of nature, and affirm that they are provocative of evil, can only support their arguments by brazen assertions and subtle paralogisms.

Common salt is considered by most persons as a mere luxury, as if its use were only to gratify the taste, although it is essential to health and life, and is indeed as much an aliment or food as either bread or flesh. It is a constituent of most of our food and drinks, and nature has kindly furnished us with an appetite for it, though there are not a few who regard it quite in another light: that quadrupeds and birds (as I have before stated) should be fully alive to the vivifying properties of salt, and that mankind should be indifferent to, and in many instances totally ignorant of them, is somewhat curious and incomprehensible, but it is so.

Another strange fact is, that savage nations use it freely with but few exceptions: on the other hand, in civilised life there are a great number who never touch it; but these abstainers little think that they carry in their countenances visible signs of ill-health, and their impurity of skin indicates that at some future time disease, in some form or other, will cause them to regret, in more ways than one, that their short-sighted neglect has prepared a soil ready to receive the seeds of some fever, and other maladies more deadly and obstinate.

Cutaneous eruptions, so distressing to the patient, and so disgusting to an observer, flourish when they attack those who have abstained from the use of salt.

Everyone perspires or sweats: the indolent perspire, the laborious sweat. This distinction will be regarded as too fine by those who entertain the opinion that perspiration and sweat mean the same thing; this, however, is a great error; there is a marked difference between perspiring and sweating, as much difference, indeed, between these two processes of the elimination of refuse animal matter, as there is between walking and running. It is true the same laws of nature are brought into play; but one is a modification of the other. Those of a spare habit are seldom in a state of general diaphoresis, and are only so when the weather is sultry, or when they have taken a walk on a hot summer’s day. The stout or plethoric, on the contrary, sweat copiously, even on the slightest movement; and it is really a good thing for them that they do, for otherwise they would very likely be attacked with a fit of apoplexy, or would fall down from syncope; the former arising from the flow of too much blood to the brain, or from rupture of an artery; the latter resulting from an insufficient supply; or the blood owing to its circulating in an impure state, which is practically the case if there is a deficiency of salt, would generate, not what is generally considered disease, but a condition which would render the system prepared for the reception and development of morbific influences.

During perspiration the blood is deprived, in proportion as the diaphoresis continues, not only of the liquor-sanguinis, but of the chloride of sodium which it holds in solution. Though to a certain extent perspiration is an act of nature necessary for the continuance of health, yet, if it goes beyond a point which is consistent with an equalisation of the several secretions, the individual experiences a diminution or loss of power, and nervous exhaustion or irritability is the result. In natural diaphoresis the only way in which the system can recuperate itself is by quenching the thirst; for free perspiration is generally or almost invariably succeeded by a corresponding thirst, varying in intensity according to the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the individual.

Thin people do not perspire so copiously as those who are more stoutly built, therefore they do not lose so much and neither do they require so much fluid. Their blood, by reason of its retaining its liquor-sanguinis and its chloride of sodium, does not require salt as an aliment so freely as those who, owing to their profuse perspiration, are in constant want of it. Stout people, or those who have a superabundance of adipose tissue (for I must observe there is a great difference between stoutness and obesity, though in common parlance the two words are synonymous), require salt in a greater degree than thin people. Well-developed muscles covering a well-made frame, accompanied by a proper and due proportion of fat, constitute stoutness of a healthy standard; but small muscles covered with an overdue amount of fat, with an abdomen distended to an offensive size (which is so frequently seen), seem, in my opinion, to determine a habit of a Vitellian obesity, if I may so apply the name of that Roman epicure.

Owing to the fact that stout and fat people perspire freely and profusely, and to a much greater extent when undergoing fatigue, they must necessarily lose a great amount of salt; for as it is held in solution by the liquor-sanguinis, which passes through the pores of the skin in the form of sweat (the word perspiration is not sufficiently emphatic when we are speaking of stout and fat individuals), it must naturally pass out with it, and thus they experience thirst and a desire for salt; which desire is strongly indicative of a healthy state of the secretions. If there is no wish for salt, then we may conclude that disease in some form or other is lurking unsuspected in the system, ready to break out, either by an act of indiscretion, poisoned atmosphere, or because of a taint of an hereditary character. We may compare this condition of things to a barrel of gunpowder, ready on the application of the faintest spark to ignite, and spread confusion and death far and wide, with a fury proportionate to the amount of the inflammatory material. If these people do not take salt with their food they allow their blood to become impoverished and more unhealthy than it already is, and their constitutions materially suffer in consequence, their skins are ultimately affected, the complexion frequently becomes sallow, and appears discoloured, and in some severe cases we have that skin disease called acnÆ, indicative of the poor and unwholesome state of the blood; they are affected with intestinal parasites, they do not digest their food, their breath has a most disagreeable odour, very unmistakable, and they are more or less out of health.

Those of a scrofulous habit require salt to a much greater extent than even the gross, because the blood of scrofulous or strumous persons does not possess its due proportion of salt; and the only way to make up for this deficiency is to use it freely, otherwise the system does not derive the support and nourishment from that source which vitalises the whole frame. We may justly infer that if the blood is deficient of a most important constituent the system must, as a matter of course, degenerate into a condition not only ready to receive disease, but into one which reduces the strength and undermines the nerve-power, and this in a scrofulous habit is fraught with serious consequences.

The chronic inflammation which attacks the joints in scrofula sometimes occurs, not so much from the unhealthy low state of the system, but rather from the impure condition of the blood, resulting from the partial absence of salt. This must be the case, because the sufferer experiences an increased vitality if salt is used more abundantly; the change of course is gradual, and therefore we must not expect to see one’s efforts immediately crowned with success. It is sometimes necessary to explain to scrofulous patients the unhealthiness of a persistent avoidance of salt, and to point out to them the benefits accruing from it, and also to insist upon their using it, because, owing to their ignorance of its operation and their unwise dislike, they look upon it in the light of a noxious compound.

I have frequently noticed (and I dare say others have observed the same thing) the disfiguring eruptions with which many people (and especially the young) of a scrofulous habit, and even some who are free from this taint, are afflicted about the face and neck. These pimples and blotches, when not caused by constipation, are generally accompanied by a swollen condition of the glands, which are sometimes acutely sensitive to the slightest pressure.

If we were to question them closely we should find that salt is to them an almost unknown article of diet, or distasteful to them, though no doubt it is, in some few instances, used but sparingly and seldom.

The blood, more or less, is always undergoing a change, even in health; the nitrogenised and non-nitrogenised substances are invariably variable, and at no two moments are the salts of the same proportion, its alkalescence always being in a constant state of variation. Notwithstanding our increased facilities for obtaining a better acquaintance with disease than formerly, the few facts which have been satisfactorily made out show us that as yet we have made but little progress as regards the morbid conditions of the human blood, and that a great deal remains to be accomplished before we are masters of the subject.

Amongst the chief diseases in which a pathognomonic condition of the blood has been discovered is the increase of the fibrine, which always takes place in inflammatory diseases, such as acute rheumatism and inflammation of the lungs; in low fevers it is diminished; it is also subject to variation in other diseases. In typhoid fever the diminution of salt and the increase of fibrine is very marked; and indeed in all inflammatory states of the system, especially of a sthenic type, the partial absence or variation of the amount of the chloride of sodium is a most important characteristic. No attention has, up to the present time, been given to the relation which the presence of the chloride of sodium in the blood bears to disease, at least not that I am aware of; and from what I have noticed it opens up a question which in time will be considered of some moment. As the chloride of sodium obviates the tendency of the fibrine to coagulate, and as its coagulation or solubility is quite dependent on its normal amount in the blood, it presents to us many varied points of interest, not only physiologically, but medicinally, though in this respect it has not yet been recognised as a curative agent.

Whenever the blood is impoverished we may be tolerably certain that salt is, in a greater or lesser degree, absent, or below the standard, and that it is variable.

Now in scrofula the blood is not only vitiated, but poor in the extreme, and there is a decrease of the fibrine; and that being the case, the constitution suffers in proportion, the affection showing itself in various ways, which unmistakably indicate the adynamic state of that fluid which permeates the whole frame.

Scrofula and her twin sister struma, for there is a difference, are low forms of chronic inflammatory cachexia, and are never entirely recovered from. We may justly term them systemic diseases originating local morbid phenomena, and which are always liable to give rise to obscure attacks of an apparently serious nature, but which are considerably modified if the treatment be simply hygienic, judicious, and practical; scrofula is always tedious and prolonged, and therefore, as I have said before, we must not anticipate that because salt is of a nature somewhat antidotal to it and its attendant evils, that its effects are to be observable instantaneously, or that any very remarkable results must necessarily be obtained. It is the reverse; the effects are slow in the extreme, but the benefit is permanent—that is, if the treatment adopted be calculated to restore to the blood that constituent so necessary for health.

This is easily explained—the unhealthiness of the system arising from mal-nutrition, owing to the blood being more or less deficient of a constituent which is necessary for the promotion of health, and being solely constitutional, it takes some time to make up for that deficiency, and to supply that which is lost. A disease of long standing, and of an hereditary character, is not speedily recovered from, particularly if the mischief is caused by, or is dependent upon, an impure state of the blood, and if there is not the normal amount of the chloride of sodium it must of necessity be corrupt.

Though salted provisions are apt to produce scurvy if continued for too long a time, yet in the case of those on board ship I do not think it arises exclusively from the salt itself, but by the unwholesome food upon which the toilers of the sea are obliged too often to subsist. The biscuits, which are of the coarsest kind, and sometimes worm-eaten, are certainly not calculated to keep up the stamina of the men; and the salt pork which they have three or four times a week is not exactly the food to promote a healthy condition of the blood; neither is the soup, which is little better than rice water, capable of even satisfying the cravings of hunger.

Besides, there is a very miserable custom, and which tends to ruin the health of our sailors, and that is the drink which is, I may say, encouraged on board ship, and officially served out to them daily, in the shape of rum, though of late they can have cocoa if they prefer. So habituated have they become to this that no captain would think of suggesting a diminution of the supply. Our sailors, poor fellows! will stand anything but the deprivation of their “grog;” they do not mind being crowded like beasts of burden in a close, stifling forecastle, eating coarse biscuits or unwholesome pickled pork, so long as they are duly supplied with their “grog” and allowed to go “ashore” and spend their contemptible pittance on poisonous compounds which burn their stomachs and sow the seeds of some deadly disease, and especially if they happen to be in the tropics.

All these inseparable accompaniments of nautical life are, without doubt, provocative of scurvy to a certain extent, and I am sure do not help to stave it off. If rum is taken on an empty stomach, day after day, as regularly as clockwork, we cannot expect that the men should be in a state of sound health, or that their blood should be pure; particularly if the voyage is long, the biscuits worm-eaten, the pickled pork of a questionable condition, sometimes even approaching putridity, and the rice-soup—upon which I shall abstain from passing any remarks, further than by saying that it is decidedly not of that quality tending to act as a substantial sustentation of men who work hard, and who are exposed to all weathers, both by night and by day. Indeed it is surprising that they can perform their duties as they do when we call to mind their irregularities, their daily use of spirits, and their periodical alcoholic indulgences when ashore, combined with their abominable diet on board ship.

Though salted provisions solely are not altogether conducive to health, or contributive towards preserving the due equalisation of the constituents of the blood, I cannot see that they entirely originate scurvy, as some assert; I am of an opinion that this disease is caused principally by seamen’s peculiar habits, and the surroundings belonging to a seafaring life, joined, much more frequently than some would like to confess, with the ingestion of animal food just rescued from putrescence by a timely immersion in brine.

Everything, as is well known, can be used and abused, and salt, like other natural productions, owing to human avarice, can be put to a purpose so as to derange and render nugatory the laws of health. We know full well that salt completely arrests the formation of putrescent larvÆ in meat, if it is rubbed in when fresh, or if it is well soaked in strong brine; and if the meat is bordering on decomposition, we may prevent it proceeding to a more advanced stage by immersing it in brine; still it is not in a condition fit for human consumption. Such food in my opinion is of a nature calculated to produce disease of a most virulent type; indeed it is quite sufficient to produce the worse form of scurvy, let alone the outbreaks of a milder degree.

I am acquainted with the fact that a diet consisting exclusively of salt pork and salt beef, with very little variation or change, would be, if continued for any length of time, combined with the absence of fresh vegetables, productive of much mischief, and in the end no doubt scurvy would be the result; but for us to assert that every outbreak of this disease is produced by salted provisions, is to run into a very ridiculous error, and we fall into a trap cunningly laid for us by those whose interest it is to keep up this preposterous imposition in the eyes of the not too discerning public. If shipowners took more care in provisioning their ships with wholesome food, instead of allowing them to be stored with bad pork, putrid beef, and rotten biscuits, we should not read the heart-sickening accounts so frequently in the newspapers. It is all very well for them to assert that the disease springs from salt, and the absence of vegetable food; it is to their interest to say so. We can cast their flimsy statements to the winds, however, and give them an emphatic contradiction, for their proceedings in this matter will not bear even a partial investigation.

I have gone more fully into this part of my subject than I intended, for the following reason: the advocates of total abstention from salt invariably bring forward scurvy as a conclusive proof of their argument, and as unanswerable; they have not looked at it, I am afraid, from the above standpoint, and I think if they will take the trouble to go into the matter more thoroughly, they will find that scurvy originates, not from wholesome salted provisions and the want of vegetables, but from impure and putrid food, which too many owners of ships, from pecuniary motives, prefer to supply, not for the passengers—that would of course be unwise policy—but for the men who labour for them on the waters, and who are at the mercy of employers as insatiable and inexorable in obtaining their pounds of flesh as the storm-tossed ocean yawning for its victims.

“Digestion is the process by which those parts of our food which may be employed in the formation and repair of the tissues, or in the production of heat, are made fit to be absorbed and added to the blood.”

I do not think it will be out of place to make a few cursory observations on the process of digestion, for as scurvy is the result of the ingestion of unwholesome food, we cannot do better than consider the process in relation to salt, and its action on animal and vegetable food while it is in the stomach.

When this organ is empty it is completely inactive; there is no secretion of the gastric juice, and the mucus, which is slightly alkaline or neutral, covers the surface; but immediately food is introduced, the mucous membrane, which was pale, at once becomes turgid, owing to the greater influx of blood; because when any organ has work to perform, it requires an increased supply.

The amount of the gastric juice secreted has been variously estimated to be from ten to twenty pints a day in a healthy adult, and by the following table, we find that salt, or rather the chloride of sodium, is present in a considerable quantity. Looking, then, at the immense secretion of the gastric juice, salt is really in continual requisition, making it self-evident that if the supply is not kept up in the same ratio, digestion is retarded, the food passes out of the stomach in an undigested state into the duodenum, and the stomach is consequently overstrained because of the loss of one of its most important constituents; the supply of salt not being equal to the demand.

Composition of Gastric Juice.

In a sheep’s gastric juice there is to 971·17 of water, 4·36 of chloride of sodium, showing at once how highly necessary it is for cattle to be supplied with it; a sheep will consume on the average half an ounce of salt daily; that it tends to prevent an outbreak of the rot, I have already drawn the attention of the reader.54

There is we see 0.20 of hydrochloric acid to 994.40 of water in the gastric juice, though some are of an opinion that it is lactic acid; the weight of evidence is decidedly in favour of free hydrochloric acid.

Food when it is going through the process of digestion is reduced to a pulp by the solvent properties of the gastric juice, which are due to the presence of the animal matter or pepsine, and the hydrochloric acid; neither of these two constituents can digest separately, they must be together; and they must be in that proportion as we have before us in the preceding table; to act as complete disintegrators and solvents.

The general effect of digestion is the conversion of the food into what is called chyme; and though the various materials of a meal are entirely dissimilar in their composition, whether they are azotised or nitrogenous, and non-azotised or non-nitrogenous; when they are once reduced to this condition, viz., chyme, they hardly admit of recognition.

The reader may naturally suppose “that the readiness with which the gastric fluid acts on the several articles of food, is in some measure determined by the state of division, and the tenderness and moisture of the substance presented to it,” and he may also be aware of the fact, that the readiness with which any substance is acted upon by the gastric juice, does not necessarily imply that it possesses nutritive characteristics, for it stands to reason that a substance may be nutritious, and yet hard to digest; and when this is the case, the gastric follicles supply a greater quantity of fluid, in order to effect the conversion of the food into chyme. Pepsine and the hydrochloric acid, the two indispensable and inseparable solvents, are consequently secreted in greater abundance in order to meet and overcome the difficulty, so that the food may be in a condition fit for assimilation with the various tissues.

Man requires a mixed kind of aliment, therefore he must have animal as well as vegetable food, though there are many instances of people who live wholly on animal or vegetable substances; these of course are anomalies, and therefore their habits are unnatural. Vegetarianism is a foolish freak of the weak-minded and semi-ignorant; the structure of the teeth of man points conclusively to the fact that he is both carnivorous and herbivorous; though these vegetable philosophers would have us believe that he is destined to feed upon cabbages!

Food is divided into two groups, nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous, or animal and vegetable; the only non-nitrogenous organic substances of the animal, or nitrogenous, are furnished by the fat, and in some few cases by those vegetable matters that may happen to be in the organs of digestion of those animals who are eaten whole.

Nutritive or plastic, is given to those principles of food which are converted into fibrine or albumen of blood, and being assimilated by the various tissues through its medium, and those principles comprising the major part of the non-nitrogenous food, in the form of fat, gum, starch, and sugar, and other substances of a similar nature, are supposed to be utilised in the production of heat, and are termed calorifaciant, or sometimes respiratory food. The principal ordinary articles of vegetable food contain identical substances, in composition, with the fibrine, caseine, and albumen, which constitute the chief nutritive materials of animal food; for instance, the gluten which is present in corn is identical in composition with fibrine, and is therefore called vegetable fibrine; legumen, which exists in beans, peas, and other seeds of the leguminosÆ, is similar to the caseine of milk; and albumen is most abundant in the seeds and juices of nearly all vegetables.

On carefully analysing the preceding remarks on food and some of its uses after it has been digested, and the composition and properties of the gastric juice, it is obvious that salt is not only a simple adjunct to food, and therefore not of much importance, but is an article of diet in every sense of the word, and as necessary, if not more so, than many aliments which are regarded as essential.

In its relations to animal or nitrogenous, and vegetable or non-nitrogenous, food, salt is in every respect important.

The hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, which is so bountifully secreted by the glands of the stomach, of course drains the whole system of its salt, and especially does it draw the chloride of sodium from the blood, which contains 3·6 in 1000, being held in solution by the liquor-sanguinis.

Animal or nitrogenous food contains only a minimum of salt, which chiefly exists in the muscular tissue, its principal constituents being albumen and fibrine; if, therefore, it is eaten as a rule without salt, digestion is by no means facilitated, because meat being comparatively tough, the glands have to secrete an increased quantity in order to break down or disintegrate it, and there is, as I have observed, a greater drain on the system.

Vegetable or non-nitrogenous food contains potash; only those vegetables growing near the sea contain soda. The same reasons which apply to animal food hold good as regards vegetable, with this difference: the gluten, the legumen, and their other ingredients are acted upon by the gastric juice more rapidly, and that being the case, a less amount is required, and as a natural consequence less salt, or rather chloride of sodium, is abstracted from the blood; because the more the stomach is called upon to exert itself, a greater flow of blood to that viscus is the result, which takes place only when the food to be acted upon is of a harder or tougher material than ordinary, when the organ is filled to repletion, or when salt is omitted as a rule.

Another fact should be borne in mind: cellulose is a substance invariably present in the vegetable kingdom, and is found both in low and high plants; it is present in the fungus as well as in the palm, in the lichen as well as in the oak; it is not subject to climatic influences nor to atmospheric changes, so that its quantity in all plants is always the same. This cellulose is almost identical in its composition with starch, which is a substance entirely non-nutritious. When in the system starch undergoes a transformation, by some process not as yet clearly defined, into sugar; whether in the stomach or by some action of the liver, physiologists are uncertain, but it is an unexplained physiological fact, nevertheless. Sugar, we know, is a very active agent in the production of fat; therefore it is not desirable for us to have an overplus, but rather to keep it under. Salt is not a fat-producer; it has an opposite effect; therefore it should be used plentifully with vegetable food in order to neutralise the effect of the starch or cellulose.

We thus see that this substance cellulose is identical with starch; that starch is turned into sugar, and that sugar promotes the growth of fat. I have already mentioned that stout and fat persons require more salt than those who are spare; therefore we may see at a glance how necessary it is for us to use salt liberally with oleaginous food, and indeed with all which tends to increase the adipose tissue.

Those who have a predisposition to obesity, and who wish to reduce their bulk, cannot take better means to obtain the object of their desire than to use salt at all their meals, and to take care that their food is of the plainest; then with a proper amount of exercise and attention to the secretions, they will find that instead of carrying a distended, cumbersome abdomen about with them, attended with miserable inconveniences, they will have the felicity of experiencing not only a diminution of size, but a more easy and expeditious locomotion; and they will be enabled to

If they wish to effect their purpose more speedily, Glauber’s salt waters, which contain salt, can be taken with advantage, for they decrease the fat and assist digestion and assimilation. “In the same way chloride of sodium may be shown to be a more important ingredient than is sometimes supposed. It stimulates gently the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, and also the muscular fibres of the intestines; when absorbed it promotes tissue-change, and apparently aids the cell formation. Its digestive action is well known.”55

According to Dr. Rawitz, who has examined microscopically the products of artificial digestion and the excreta after the same food, cells, both animal and vegetable, pass through the alimentary canal completely unchanged, such as cartilage and fibro-cartilage, except that of fish, which fact is indicative that it is more digestible than any other aliment; elastic fibre is also unchanged, and fat-cells are frequently found altogether unaltered; also after eating fat pork, the pabulum of the lower classes, crystals of cholesterine are invariably to be obtained from the excreta.

Quantities of cell-membrane of vegetables are found in the alvine evacuations, likewise starch-cells, with only part of their contents removed, and the green colouring principle, chlorophylle, is never changed.

From the foregoing we see at once the kind of food necessary, as regards its sustentative and nutritious properties, and that which merely serves as an unimportant adjunct.

Dr. Rawitz does not inform us whether a greater or lesser amount of salt was used in his experiments; being regarded as an unimportant item, he probably may have been indifferent as to whether it was used or not, and took no note of the quantity. As nothing was found in the excreta belonging to fish, we may regard it as favouring the view, that being impregnated with salt, and living in salt water, the facility with which it is digested is mainly owing to the presence of salt. Fresh-water fish, as is well known, are not digested so easily and thoroughly as those which live in the sea. Again, Dr. Rawitz does not tell us whether the fish used in his experiments were salt or fresh; I conclude that they were salt, because the consumption of fresh-water fish is considerably below the number of that caught at sea.

Those who believe that man is an organism of vegetable proclivities, and would have him live upon vegetables exclusively, who point with a triumphant smile to scurvy as resulting solely from long-continued abstention from vegetable food, combined with the ingestion of salted meat, should remember that any kind of food indulged in to the exclusion of others injures the health, reduces the physical strength, and deteriorates the blood. They are right as far as their argument goes, but they lose sight of some very remarkable facts when they describe scurvy as originating from salt.

Vegetables which are generally used as aliment are young and fresh; on board ship, and especially in long voyages, they are in nine cases out of ten old and musty, and those belonging to the compositÆ, such as cabbages, rapidly degenerate into decomposition, generating a very poisonous gas, viz. sulphuretted hydrogen; while those belonging to the leguminosÆ, as peas and beans, lose their great nutritious principle, legumen, which is identical with the caseine of milk, and which renders them such invaluable articles of diet. Besides, if vegetables are kept for any length of time, even if excluded from the air, they are liable to rapid decomposition immediately they are exposed to its influences. I therefore think, as I have asserted already, that salted meat is not wholly responsible for scurvy, and that it much more frequently arises from its being salted in the early stages of putrescence.

These vegetable reformers and abstainers from salt are, I am afraid, ignorant of these facts.

If mankind were to act in accordance with the wishes of visionaries, and those who are prone to scientific credulity, and who look upon themselves as philanthropic philosophers, we should speedily be reduced to the unenviable condition of the Frenchman’s horse; for to some, animal food is pernicious, salt is in some respects poisonous, water is to be discarded as worse than useless, stimulants in the hour of sickness are to be avoided, and are never to be touched; vegetables are mere woody fibre or starch-cells. They are considerate, however; they have left us fish! This staple of food is not yet ostracised.

Happy is the man who lives according to the dictates of nature, temperately and wholesomely, and who does not run like a thoughtless being into extremes, originating from hare-brained fanatics, and from unpractical utilitarians.

Salt is a preventive of those disfiguring eruptions which frequently affect the young about the face and neck, and which in the majority of cases arise from a defective state of the blood. One need only take a stroll through a crowded thoroughfare to find that this is the fact. These young people, instead of possessing complexions which are indicative of health and purity of blood, carry in their countenances unmistakable marks which cannot escape the eye of an observant and discriminating passer-by. If we were to make inquiries, we should find that they are, with few exceptions, absolute strangers to salt, and that probably they have been brought up from their infancy by their parents never to touch it.

This neglect shows the grossest ignorance on the part of these people, and calls for the most stringent censure; it is almost incredible, to find so many unaccustomed to the use of salt, and who never impress upon their children the need of it, and that the continuance of their health is partly dependent upon a daily use of a substance which is a highly important constituent of the blood.

I have drawn my reader’s attention to the facts that the blood of scrofulous persons is deficient in salt, that the amount is variable, and that the deficiency is at once discernible in the objectionable condition of the skin of the face and neck; but here we have people enjoying a fair share of health, who, owing to ignorance or indifference, are reducing themselves to a state bordering on disease, and who would otherwise be total strangers to those ailments which only attack the impure, the luxurious and intemperate.

We have seen that salt is necessary in the animal economy, otherwise it would not exist as a constituent of the blood. It is equally necessary for the preservation of health; for in the blood of those people who are suffering from disease, we detect a visible decrease. In some cases of fever the diminution is remarkable; if the febrile symptoms increase in severity, we find that there is a corresponding loss of the chloride of sodium. This simple fact alone shows that it is the imperative duty of those who have at heart the well-being of their fellow-creatures, to impress upon them in emphatic language, that if they wish their blood to be in a pure healthy condition, and to be able to ward off the insidious attacks of disease, they must make it a frequent article of diet.

We are all cognisant that disease will be to the end of time one of the scourges of humanity; and at the present day certain maladies are spreading amongst us with the greatest rapidity, all our efforts to eradicate them having been hitherto altogether futile, and the results far from promising. All our medicines, our improved modes of treatment, and our hygienic schemes, ingenious as they undoubtedly are, reflecting the highest honour on their philanthropic originators, have been, and still are to a considerable extent, abortive, and we are still combating with, and succumbing to, this inveterate enemy of mankind.

We do not diet ourselves as we should; in this respect we are far behind the veriest savage, cannibal though he be: he in his natural state obeys the laws and dictates of nature, which we in our civilised state decidedly do not, notwithstanding the assertions of the dreamy philosophers of the day. He sleeps when nature prompts him, regardless of the sun’s heat or midnight dews; he eats when he is hungry, and drinks when he is thirsty; he goes through a certain amount of physical fatigue; his clothing is of the simplest kind; his food on the average is the purest; his drink is that natural fluid which we, owing to our high state of civilisation, so pertinaciously and foolishly discard; he roams at pleasure either on the desert or in the forest; and his impulses, though savage, are never at variance with nature; he is, in fact, as real a child of nature as an average civilised European is the slave of a falsified nature.

Those who have travelled in the islands of the Pacific Ocean have informed us that their inhabitants, with but few exceptions, possess the secret of extracting salt from certain substances, which indicates that even they are fully alive to its virtues, and proves to us, who boast of our superiority, that we are deficient of natural acumen, or that it is marred and stultified by those silly customs arising from that curse of civilisation, fashion, which makes slaves of us all, at least of the weak-minded and frivolous.

At the tables of the wealthy it is perfectly absurd to see the small amount of salt which is placed in the smallest receptacles, as if it were the most expensive article; and it is equally ridiculous to see the host and his guests, in the most finical grotesque manner, help themselves to the almost infinitesimal quantities of salt, as if it were a mark of good breeding and delicacy. This is how we pervert nature; our civilisation is a great good, undoubtedly, but at the same time it is frequently at variance with what is good for us. If the blind votaries of fashion think that it is polite to use the gifts of nature in such a way as to render them comparatively useless, let those who wish to enjoy the blessings of health, pure blood, and a wholesome, transparent skin, refrain from those stupid customs of “good society,” which are truly indicative of mental weakness and most profound ignorance.

I have known people who accustom themselves to the use of salt baths, and who talk very glibly of the luxury of sea-bathing, who yet are in complete ignorance of the virtues of salt as a condiment and as a preserver of health, and who try to prove that salt so used is obnoxious, and consequently to be avoided. These salt baths are popular, not because they are beneficial, but by reason of their comparative novelty; and accordingly, many who would not think of using salt with their food, plunge headlong into the sea or into a salt-water bath, with all the vigour possible.

Salt baths are presumed by some to be of great value in gout; Droitwitch in particular is famous for them; many who were considered as incurable have alleged that after having used them, they have returned home cured.

The topical application of salt water to weak joints, etc., has only just come to the front; and by many it is regarded as quite a new remedy; and I have heard some very disparaging observations on the medical profession regarding its negligence to, or indifference of, the restorative properties of salt water, alleging that it has been reluctantly forced to advise it, in deference to the popular opinion in its favour. It is indeed a fact that until a few years ago, medical men as a rule were utterly unacquainted with salt water as a remedial agent; and the idea no doubt would have been denounced with as much asperity and contumely as the hydropathic treatment is at the present day, and with as much reason. It is a mistake, however, to assume that it is of recent origin, for my father, Mr. Wm. Barnard Boddy, has been in the habit of advising it for over the last sixty years, and with almost uniform success.

Intestinal worms, which so frequently infest the impure, rendering them somewhat offensive to themselves, generate much more rapidly, and take a firmer hold on their victims, even if there is but partial absence of salt in the blood, and particularly if pork is frequently an article of diet. I have known many instances in which they have been expelled, and the intestines thoroughly freed from them, on a more liberal use of salt, for it is certain death to these parasites, helping to root them out, and destroying them, whether they belong to the tape, the round, or the thread variety.

Children, we know, are more liable to have these parasites than adults, with the exception of the tape-worm; particularly is this the case with those of the labouring and agricultural classes, and with children who are fed upon rich dainties. With regard to the agricultural class, it is, I think, easily explained. People who live in the country—I refer, of course to the poorer sort—allow their children to run about wherever they please, especially in the spring and summer time; the cottage door and the small garden are generally the places where they assemble; or the neighbouring lane or meadow, if the weather is at all favourable; where they may be seen rolling and tumbling about, picking up what they can find if at all edible, and soon putting their discoveries into their mouths with apparent relish. The British cottagers, not being at all particular as to whether their vegetables are clean or not, swallow, as well as their children, any insect that may be ensconced in the half-cooked cabbage, or unwashed celery or water-cress. Another reason is, I think, of more weight than the preceding two, and that is, they very seldom think of using salt at meal-time, though it is sometimes to be seen on their tables. The English working-classes are nearly, if not altogether, unacquainted with the benefit of salt, and very few indeed utilise it as they should; so that we can easily understand why they are so infested with intestinal parasites, which thrive in such a soil, and increase, in some instances to an enormous extent.

The embryo of the tape-worm, called the echino-coccus hominis, in such cases finds a fitting and a secure home, and soon develops into its tape-like form, and with wonderful tenacity keeps firm hold; so that sometimes it is difficult, or even impossible, to effect its entire removal, especially if it has existed for any length of time, and particularly if the individual indulges often in pork; for as its source is undoubtedly measely pork, such a course of diet nourishes it and imparts an increased vitality. I have known them to exist in some people notwithstanding the most energetic and judicious treatment, not only for many years, but for a lifetime; and in the end to cause the death of their victim. Sailors, by reason of their wretched diet, are frequently troubled with this parasite.

Whenever these intestinal parasites exist they are indicative, not only of foul diet and abstention from salt, but also of impure habit, and prove conclusively that the individual is more or less a stranger to salt.

The latter is more commonly the origin of these pests, and shows us how careful we ought to be as to what we eat; for we may well suppose that the ingestion of pork, vegetables half-washed, and abstention from salt is just the kind of diet favourable for the reception of the embryo, and for its speedy development.

Lord Somerville, in his address to the Board of Agriculture some years ago, states that the ancient laws of Holland “ordained men to be kept on bread alone, unmixed with salt, as the severest punishment that could be inflicted upon them in their moist climate: the effect was horrible; these wretched criminals are said to have been devoured by worms, engendered in their own stomachs.”

In the Medical and Physical Journal (vol. xxxix.) Mr. Marshall tells us of a lady who had a “natural” (I should say unnatural) aversion to salt, and who was afflicted with worms during the whole of her lifetime. Can we imagine anything more horrible or more disgusting than a person, owing to a foolish prejudice, being in such a foul and impure condition? The enjoyment of life was out of the question, and there can be no doubt that she was in a constant state of ill-health; she must have been, if she had any refined feelings, loathsome to herself, and yet, at the present time, there are many in the same plight, who would not touch the smallest particle of salt on any account whatever, or probably would do so with extreme reluctance.

There is another very interesting parasite called the cysticercus cellulosÆ, originating from diseased pork; it is found in subjects of the leuco-phlegmatic temperament; it is met with in the muscles of the thigh, in the muscular tissue of the heart, and in the brain and eye. If the pork containing this parasite is well soaked in strong brine and thoroughly cooked, no harm will accrue; another fact, I must observe, showing the great importance of salt as an edible.

The thread-worm, technically termed the ascaris vermicularis, generally met with in children, is speedily got rid of if a solution of salt is injected into the rectum, combined with the administration of an anthelmintic and pure diet, with a regular use of salt, and a little attention to cleanliness.

While we are upon this question of worms we may with some advantage consider that modern disease—if we may designate parasitical development in muscular tissue as such—which has for some time riveted the attention of scientists, and has all but foiled their endeavours to elucidate; I refer to trichinosis, a condition caused by the introduction of a most minute organism, called the trichina spiralis (from its being coiled up in transparent capsules), in various muscles of the body, and particularly in the deltoids and other muscles of the arms. Sporadic outbreaks of this incurable disease have occurred at various times and of variable intensity, but always with the most alarming results.

Unfortunately we possess no means of detecting the trichinÆ when they have once been introduced into the system; we may by the symptoms be led to suspect that they are present, but that is as far as we can go; and if we are to believe Professors Delpech and Reynal it is utterly impossible to discover them; they affirm, however, that in cut meat the larval capsules, or lemon-shaped cases, can only just be seen by the aid of a powerful lens.

In the outbreak which took place in the year 1863 at HeltstaÄdt, 28 out of 153 persons succumbed; sufficiently exemplifying the fatal character of these infinitesimal organisms; for they may exist in thousands, and even in millions—some say twenty millions—in their miserable victim. So virulent is the disease originating from this parasite, and so insidious in its operation, that in its primary stage it is liable to be mistaken for rheumatism, on account of the severe muscular pain; and in fact the sensitiveness of this tissue is so much increased that those muscles which are concerned in the mechanism of respiration give rise to such excruciating pain that the sufferer is quite unable to sleep; indeed, so extreme is the muscular sensibility that the slightest pressure causes acute suffering.

The latter stages simulate typhoid fever, or more correctly, the disease drifts into a typhoid condition, for the symptoms are of that peculiar exceptional character which are presumed to be indicative of this much misunderstood fever. It has, however, been ascertained that those attacked are rarely, if ever, able to endure the long and exhausting course of this disease, but break down, utterly worn out by the unceasing ravages of these prolific and voracious little parasites.

The French, with that acuteness which is natural to them, soon discovered that by good and thorough cooking the trichinÆ can be destroyed; and they further ascertained that they cannot survive a temperature of 167° Fahrenheit, and also discovered that if meat is well salted the trichinÆ are rendered perfectly harmless; in fact, they are killed by the chloride of sodium quite as effectively as by the application of heat.

This is another unanswerable argument in favour of a more general use of salt, quite sufficient to convince the most stubborn disbeliever; for here we have a parasite which may at any time be introduced into the stomach, let us be as careful as we may; capable of generating myriads in an almost incredible short space of time, and which it is next to impossible to effect the removal of; in the end causing much physical suffering, and producing symptoms liable to be mistaken for those of a dangerous disease; and finally disintegrating those muscles in the fibres of which they live, procreate, and gradually destroy the life of a human being.

The greatest triumph of engineering skill the world has ever seen, the St. Gothard railway tunnel, was the cause of a great sacrifice of life and health owing to a disease engendered by the presence of intestinal parasites, resembling the trichinÆ; and we learn from Professor Calderini, of Parma, and Professors Bozzolo and Pagliani, of Turin, that from 70 to 80 per cent. of the miners suffered from this complaint, which they have designated anÆmia ankylostoma. Among the men who worked in the tunnel for about one year 95 per cent. were more or less affected; they likewise discovered that those who are thus attacked never entirely recover. Many reasons for this enormous fatality have been assigned, such as the vitiated state of the atmosphere, the difficulty of ventilation, the continual explosions of dynamite, the consumption of which was 660 lb. per day, the smoke and smell from 400 to 500 oil-lamps, and the exhalations from the men and horses. There was an entire absence of sanitary appliances, and the temperature was generally between 80° and 95° Fahrenheit. These surroundings were quite sufficient to account for this great sacrifice of human life, not to mention other causes.

The diet of these men was probably insufficient and of inferior quality, and I dare say if more crucial inquiries were instituted we should find that these miners were as a rule inattentive to personal cleanliness, and that they never used salt at any of their meals; if this were so, and I cannot help thinking that my surmises are correct, we have one great cause all but sufficient for bringing about a condition of the system favourable for the development of anÆmia ankylostoma.

The presence of these parasites in the intestines of the men who worked in the St. Gothard Tunnel has been proved beyond question by a careful and prolonged series of microscopic examinations by Dr. Giaccone, a physician in the employ of the contractors at Airolo. It is stated that Dr. Sonderreger, of St. Gall, who has been assisting Dr. Giaccone in his experiments, has discovered a process by which these parasites may be completely extirpated.

A pestiferous atmosphere is bad enough in itself, but when it is associated with impure diet—and food I maintain is impure if it is cooked and eaten without salt—we have a state of things which will prepare a soil where intestinal parasites will develop to a marvellous extent.

It is somewhat interesting to know that a similar disease is endemic in Egypt and Brazil, and that it arises from the presence of the ankylostoma in the intestines.

Poor diet no doubt is the real cause of this condition, and a great proportion of the inhabitants, as is well known, of these two countries subsist principally on food, not only non-nutritious, but impure in the extreme, which being coupled with the fact of habitual abstention from salt, brings about, as I have said before, a condition of things very favourable for the reception, generation, and development of parasitical organisms.

The outbreak which occurred in the St. Gothard tunnel originated from the impurity of the food with which the workmen were supplied, and the absence of salt, could we but fathom the real truth of the matter, though we must not lose sight of the fact that the surroundings were every way calculated to facilitate the growth of disease.

The medicinal properties of mineral waters are of great value in some conditions of the system, especially those resulting from high living and when associated with habitual indulgence in those alcoholic beverages which tend to cause congestion of the liver. These people are not what one would designate as intemperate, but whose partial physical prostration and irregularity of the secretions have been brought about by luxurious living and the unnecessary use of stimulants, combined with unhealthful indolence, and other pernicious habits, which are considered to be of the highest importance by those unhappy votaries of fashion.

Thousands of patients, and many who fancy that they are such, flock to those localities which are famous for their mineral waters; thousands go and thousands return, some better, some worse, and some in the same state of health as when they started: all declare that they are better for their trip, and it may be only a few are acquainted with the constituents of the water they have been drinking; many, if they knew that they are all derived from rock-salt, and that the other constituents to which their curative powers are ascribed are only added as the brine ascends to the surface, would be not a little amazed at their inconsistencies: to refuse to eat salt at meal-time because it is supposed to be deleterious, and then to drink, it may be, tumblerfuls of the solution, is somewhat curious.

As all mineral waters originate from rock-salt, and as they all owe their other constituents to superincumbent strata, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the chloride of sodium is, prima facie, their principal ingredient, and that their beneficial effects are to a certain extent due to it, more than to the presence of those from which their names are derived; though of course there is no denying the fact that some mineral waters are more suitable for some constitutions than others.

One would not advise individuals of plethoric habits to drink those waters which are termed chalybeate, nor those whose kidneys are affected to drink acidulous or carbonated waters; we should recommend quite the reverse.

Mineral waters have a somewhat evanescent popularity; one is rapidly succeeded by another: one that was highly eulogised is now neglected, and those which are now in favour will be, in all probability, discarded in a few years. At the present time there are many, though not a few holding a very precarious position in public estimation.

Glauber’s Salt Waters, as the name indicates, owe their medicinal properties to the presence of the sulphate of soda, chloride of sodium, and other salts. They are more nauseous than Epsom salts, and slightly more irritating; the first may depend upon the condition of the palate, the other on the weakness or obstinacy of the alimentary canal. These waters contain saline aperients which exercise no little influence on the change of tissue; a result which should make them find great favour with patients who wish to diminish their bulk without affecting their muscles.

These waters contain the chloride of sodium, the presence of which is, in my opinion, of more benefit than all the other salts put together, and which, if absent, would deprive the waters of their efficacy, or at least effect such modifications as would render them practically of but little use.

All these mineral waters come from brine-springs, and whether they are called chalybeate, carbonated, saline, or hepatic waters, whether they come from Spa or Tunbridge Wells, from Carlsbad or Ilkestone, from PÜllna or Cheltenham, Buxton, Friedrichshall, Droitwich, or Wiesbaden, their common origin is rock-salt, and to that mineral alone their virtues are principally due; the iron, magnesia, lime, and the other salts which they collect on their upward course are merely accessories, and are more useful to the proprietors than to the credulous recipients. They are purged freely, they are dieted carefully, and the blood is purified, and the result is of course beneficial; they could do the same at home, but then a weak solution of salt and magnesia or iron looks very homely when put side by side with some Carlsbad56 or Friedrichshall waters: there is a great deal in a name, and the more nauseous a compound is the greater are its medicinal virtues; so think some.

In all fevers, whether epidemic, endemic, or sporadic, the blood is thicker than ordinary, by reason of an increase of the fibrine and a decrease of the chloride of sodium; because the fibrine, which always has a tendency to coagulate, is not kept in check by the solvent properties of the chloride of sodium; this alone accounts for their partiality for salt.

In rheumatic fever the blood is even thicker than it is in other fevers; in acute rheumatism the patient is generally bathed in profuse perspiration night and day, and the sweat contains a good deal of lactic acid. The acid in the gastric juice is supposed by some physiologists to be lactic acid, whilst others affirm that it is hydrochloric acid; there is, however, such a similitude that one acid is barely distinguishable from the other. The blood in this fever therefore loses much more salt than in other febrile conditions, which explains the acute pain in the joints and the desire the patient has for salt. Blood in a thickened condition cannot pass through the blood vessels near joints without giving much pain, owing to the unyielding nature of the parts; and the fibrine also has a tendency to stagnate if the blood does not flow as it should.

In some cases of sickness, when not accompanied with vomiting, half a teaspoonful of salt in a little water is sometimes most effective. Whenever there is a feeling of nausea the stomach is relaxed, there is the usual amount of the gastric juice, but it is deficient of the hydrochloric acid; therefore a small solution of salt takes the place really of the acid, and the sickness is relieved, it likewise supplies the chloride of sodium, which has been abstracted from the gastric fluid.

In violent attacks of colic, if there is no other remedy at hand, a teaspoonful of salt in a pint of cold water, which the patient may sip, is most speedy in relieving the sufferer. The same will also relieve a person who has had a heavy fall and is partly unconscious.

In hÆmorrhage from the lungs, when the usual remedies have failed, a solution of salt will sometimes arrest it. When applied to a cut the bleeding ceases. These little facts are well worth knowing, because salt is always to be found in every home, and so may be given or applied in case there is no medical man at hand; matrons and nurses of small hospitals, infirmaries, and workhouses should be acquainted with them in case of an emergency.

We have now before us the properties of salt in a medical and dietetic sense; that indirectly it is a therapeutical agent of some value cannot be denied; that it is an important aliment is a fact which cannot be explained away; and that it is a preserver of health all must allow.

That it is of a deleterious tendency is a mere assertion as unsubstantial as “thin air,” and as flimsy as gossamer—magno conatu, magnas nugas.