GOOD EFFECTS OF SALT.
Salt appears to be a necessary and universal stimulus to animated beings; and its effects upon the vegetable as well as animal kingdom have furnished objects of the most interesting inquiry to the physiologist, the chemist, the physician, and the agriculturist. It appears to be a natural stimulant to the digestive organs of all warm-blooded animals, and that they are instinctively led to immense distances in pursuit of it. This is strikingly exemplified in the avidity with which animals in a wild state seek the salt-pans of Africa and America, and in the difficulties they will encounter to reach them: this cannot arise from accident or caprice, but from a powerful instinct, which, beyond control, compels them to seek, at all risks, that which is salubrious. To those who are anxious to gain further information upon this curious subject, I would recommend the perusal of a work entitled "Thoughts on the Laws relating to Salt," by Samuel Parkes, Esq., and a small volume by my late lamented friend Sir Thomas Bernard, on the "Case of the Salt Duties, with Proofs and Illustrations." We are all sensible of the effect of salt on the human body; we know how unpalatable fresh meat and vegetables are without it. During the course of my professional practice, I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing the evils which have attended an abstinance from salt. In my examination before a committee of the House of Commons in 1818, appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the laws respecting the salt duties, I stated, from my own experience, the bad effects of a diet of unsalted fish, and the injury which the poorer classes, in many districts, sustained in their health from an inability to procure this essential condiment. I had some years ago a gentleman of rank and fortune under my care, for a deranged state of the digestive organs, accompanied with extreme emaciation. I found that, from some cause which he could not explain, he had never eaten any salt with his meals: I enforced the necessity of his taking it in moderate quantities, and the recovery of his digestive powers was soon evinced in the increase of his strength and condition. One of the ill effects produced by an unsalted diet is the generation of worms. Mr. Marshall has published the case of a lady who had a natural antipathy to salt, and was in consequence most dreadfully infested with worms during the whole of her life.—(London Medical and Physical Journal, vol. xxix. No. 231.) In Ireland, where, from the bad quality of the food, the lower classes are greatly infested with worms, a draught of salt and water is a popular and efficacious anthelmintic. Lord Somerville, in his Address to the Board of Agriculture, gave an interesting account of the effects of a punishment which formerly existed in Holland. "The ancient laws of the country 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." The wholesomeness and digestibility of our bread are undoubtedly much promoted by the addition of salt which it so universally receives.
Dr. Paris—quoted in the Doctor.