Evan Marlett Boddy

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After a heavy shower, and more especially in the country, every insect leaves its little secluded habitation: the bee is once more on the wing; the spider resumes his usual central position in his web; flies of all sizes buzz here and there in search of food or for more secure homes; every bush is alive with its usual occupants; the lofty tree is once more the tenement of song; the caterpillar crawls on his solitary way; the ant trudges along on the gravel-path; the snail emerges from his retreat and plods slowly to another home; and the earth-worm raises itself on the lawn ”

“ 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. ”

“ All must acknowledge the fact that salt is equally pleasant to the gourmand and the temperate; and that animal and vegetable food is not palatable without it. As it is pronounced to be “good” by the highest authority, we must regard it as one of Heaven’s best gifts to man. It would be a comparatively small matter were it but a condiment rendering food more pleasant to the taste; but when we know that it is indirectly a preserver of health, and that it also contravenes the attacks of disease, its value will, I hope, be considerably increased. ”

“ Physiology has been a boon to humanity and an inexhaustible field of research to the scientific.
In a chemical point of view there is no more important mineral constituent in the human body than the chloride of sodium, for it occurs nearly in every part of the system, both solid and fluid, in close and intimate relation with the organic compounds, and it materially influences their chemical and physical properties; for instance, the albumen partly owes its solubility to the presence of salt, the quantity of which causes the differences which it presents as regards its coagulation ”

“ It is strange that mere animal instinct should be superior to human reason, and that animal sagacity should be more far-seeing than human forethought! Nothing is more strongly confirmative of this anomaly, if I may call it so, than the partiality which animals entertain for those districts which abound with salt lakes, and the antipathy, or utter indifference, with which some people regard that substance which keeps the body pure, healthy, and, I may say, clean, and which plays such a highly-important part in the animal economy. ”

“ Is it not a blessing to know that nature has munificently provided a means whereby these distressing evils may be checked and definitely eradicated by a daily use of such an enemy to, and destroyer of, disease as the chloride of sodium, universally known as common salt? ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some countries remote from the sea, which are devoid of salt-mines, and where the water is not impregnated with it, the inhabitants, aware of its usefulness, have a method of extracting it from the ashes of vegetables. This fact would certainly seem to indicate that salt has been used by various nations, as if mankind had an intuitive knowledge of the benefits arising from the use of salt, and that consequently, if there were no lakes containing it, or mountains from which they could procure it, they were determined to obtain it if even by artificial means. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Darwin’s experiments show us that salt or sea water does not entirely extirpate the life which is dormant in seeds, and those of Martens prove that seeds may be immersed in sea-water itself and yet retain the power of germination; and that when dry they may even float for 900 miles, and germinate when planted; developing into plants at the usual period of time allotted by nature! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The geographical features of this almost unknown country are peculiarly interesting, and are unique when compared with others; the great height of its mountains, its remarkable elevation, the large rivers which take their rise here, and the numerous salt lakes, the altitude of some being from 13,800 to 15,400 feet above the level of the sea, all combine to excite our curiosity, which is increased by the fact that we know next to nothing of the interior or of the habits of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Had it not been for physiological research we should not have known that the chloride of sodium was such an important constituent in the animal economy; we should have been in utter ignorance of the science of life, and we should never have known how man is begotten, how developed, or how he dies. ”

“ Those who have an unnatural aversion to it should bear in mind that the ingestion of improper animal and vegetable food frequently occasions many severe attacks of illness, and invariably provokes and intensifies that universal complaint, dyspepsia. George Herbert tells us in his Jacula Prudentum, that “Whatever the father of disease, ill diet is the mother;” and if food is taken into the stomach without its proper portion of salt, it is not what one would consider as wholesome ”

“ Now, owing to chlorine gas, the process is completed in a few hours, and a comparatively small building is quite sufficient for the purpose; the fibre is beautifully and permanently whitened, and the manufacturer experiences the pleasing satisfaction of a more rapid remuneration.
Where would be our delicately white textile fibres were it not for the abundant and inexhaustible supply of salt? How should we be enabled to cause vegetable colours to vanish as if touched by the hand of a magician were it not for the bleaching properties of chlorine? ”

“ If marine explosion is the sole cause of the formation of salt, and if the sea has through rents and crevices of the earth forced up its superabundant saline constituents wherever there has been a vent for their egress, and which has in the course of time become condensed owing to the evaporation of the water or through its percolating into the lower strata, another difficulty crops up quite as unanswerable seemingly as that which stands in the way of the volcanic hypothesis: there are no remains of marine organisms to be found, nor are there any traces of vegetable matter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Objections founded on imperfect, or an affectation of knowledge, are not worth the trouble of confuting, even if they be supported by a fair amount of intelligence; but when the opponents of salt begin to base their assertions upon science, and demur on medicinal, dietetic, and physiological grounds, then we must meet them armed with similar weapons to those they have chosen, with the handling of which they are but imperfectly acquainted, and which therefore recoil upon them in such a way as prove that though they may be shrewd, they are but badly informed and credulous scientists. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before we pass on to consider the geographical distribution of salt, we will just cursorily glance at the position it occupies in the vegetable world. It is present in all plants growing near the sea, and in variable quantities in some of those which are in or near districts where the soil is mixed with salt; though its place is taken by potash when they grow inland. ”