8 ALT. 26 1 



was called solarium argentum. Civil officials or military officers when 

 traveling in a civil capacity were also provided with this ration of salt. 

 In later times, when the commodity was no longer difficult to obtain, 

 money was paid in lieu of salt, but still ostensibly for the purpose of 

 providing the same article. Generally, however, the allowance was 

 sufficiently liberal to purchase a good many things besides sodium 

 chloride. In time salt-money in ancient Eome came to be as compre- 

 hensive as 'stationery' in the phraseology of our home-grown legisla- 

 tors. The officials received no salary, yet the unfortunate provincials 

 would generally have been glad to pay a definite amount rather than 

 the presents (?) and perquisites which they were called upon to pro- 

 vide. A salary usually means a fixed sum, but there never has been 

 framed a clear definition of 'necessary expenses.' 



As indicated above, it is still a mooted question whether the con- 

 sumption of salt is essential to the maintenance of animal life. If, 

 as is now generally held, marine fauna antedated all others, it is 

 reasonable to suppose that the principle of atavism would never carry 

 living beings beyond a natural fondness for and even the necessity of 

 consuming saline matter. On the other hand, it is maintained by 

 some competent authorities that a sufficient quantity is taken into the 

 system by the herbivora to supply all natural requirements. From 

 these it passes into the bodies of the carnivora. Those who insist that 

 sufficient salt is taken into the animal body indirectly with the food 

 are equally positive that the excessive fondness for it exhibited by most 

 men and some other animals is the result of a perverted taste. They 

 cite as a parallel case the eagerness with which dogs and other brutes, 

 to say nothing of human beings, devour sweetmeats, as evidence of a 

 vitiated taste that readily results in more or less serious harm. Cer- 

 tain it is that no mineral substance has ever been so eagerly sought as 

 an ingredient of food and it is probable that the quantity consumed 

 is on the increase. But whether animal life is possible under condi- 

 tions where salt is wholly absent can, in the present state of our knowl- 

 edge, be neither categorically affirmed nor positively denied. 



