SALT. 617 
cause their copious excretion of soda in the urine (which Salt, 
taken with food, replaces) to be mischievous; but rice is an 
exception, as it contains but few potash salts. There is abundant 
evidence that a liberal use of Salt as a condiment tends to prevent 
the formation of gravel in the urine. Contrariwise, by some 
writers, notably Dr. Braithwaite, of Leeds, an excess of common 
Salt in the diet is believed to induce cancerous deposits. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, the American writer, has humorously declared : 
**T can never stay among the village people of our windy Capes, 
without now and then coming upon a human being who looks 
as if he had been split, and salted, and dried, like the salt-fish 
which has built up his arid organization.” In the folk-lore 
which is to be found among all European peoples, as to the 
unhallowed feastings, and merry-makings of witches, and 
demons, it is always noticeable that at such gatherings there 
was no Salt. And hence has arisen a notion that Salt is a 
safeguard, and a protection against sorcery, and witchcraft of 
all kinds; from which belief has been derived the old, and 
widespread notion that to spill Salt is most unlucky. Leonardo 
da Vinci, in his famous painting of the “ Last Supper.” has most 
significantly indicated the evil intention, and the unhappy fate 
of Judas, by representing him in the act of upsetting the Salt- 
cellar, and thus spilling the sacred Salt. 
Just lately in this country a new habit of Salt-eating largely 
has sprung up, and prevails especially amongst women; it 
even reaches a stage in which the person carries lumps of Salt 
about, and is continually nibbling thereat; the disastrous 
effects of which pernicious practice are a peculiar yellowness, 
and shrivelling of the skin, followed presently by the loss of all 
the hair, even that of the eyelids; then cancerous disease 
frequently supervenes. Competent physiologists declare that 
table Salt has a very considerable power of retarding peptic 
(digestive) action in the stomach ; even in the proportion of one 
part to a thousand during a meal it has an appreciable effect of 
this nature, and with one part in two hundred the effect s so 
great as to almost bring the digestive process to a standstill. 
“Why,” asks Sir W. Roberts, “do we use so much Salt with 
our food? Animals in a state of nature require none: they 
find (with most rare exceptions) all the Salt they need in their 
natural food: but our cooks are always adding Salt in their 
culinary preparations, and we take it constantly on our plates 
