570 SALT AND ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL USES. 



as Bunge supposes, the primary cause for the need for salt so gen- 

 eral among all peoples, it is at least its consequence and its physiolog- 

 ical justification. 



Any other chloride than that of sodium susceptible of introduction 

 into the hlood may there participate in similar reactions and play the 

 same part. 



The ash salt, rich in chloride of potassium, is a good substitute for 

 cooking salt. Recent experiments have led MM. Dastre and Frouin 

 to conclude that chloride of magnesium may be used for the same pur- 

 pose with still more striking results. The secretion of gastric juice, 

 which increases in quantity by the introduction of common salt into 

 the blood, is still more increased by the introduction of the magnesium 

 salt. 



The same result would he obtained by the introduction of the 

 spurious ash salt prepared by the negroes of the Ogove and the Sanga 

 as by the use of common salt; still better results by the magnesium 

 salts if other reasons did not exclude their employment. In the 

 absence of salts belonging to tin 1 same group as common salt we may 

 even substitute, as has been shown by the well-known chemist, E. 

 Ki'ilz, others farther removed, such as the alkaline iodides and bro- 

 mides. These give rise to a gastric juice acidified by hydriodic and 

 hydrobromic acid instead of by hydrochloric acid as is normal gastric 

 juice. Still, if such a substitution in no way affected the functions of 

 the stomach, it might not be the same in relation to other organs. 



IV. 



Ordinary salt, the chloride of sodium, is one of the constituent ele- 

 ments of animal organisms, existing everywhere in them. The blood 

 has a saline taste more or less marked; all the secretions are salty; 

 the tears themselves arc more salty than bitter, whatever good people 

 may say about them. Salt water, in fact, bathes all living particles 

 and leaches continually from the organic structure, escaping from all 

 its issues, carrying with it the waste matters which should be rejected 

 from the body. 



Common salt is more suitable than any other for this purpose. In 

 a dose of t> grains per 1,000 it forms a solution innocuous to the ana- 

 tomical (dements, that can circulate around the most delicate of them 

 without causing the least damage. This close association with salt has 

 become habitual to them from immemorial usage; they have adapted 

 themselves to it, and it would lead to some inconvenience if another 

 mineral constituent should be too abruptly substituted for it. In cer- 

 tain animals that have been bled to exhaustion, life may be kept up 

 for some time if the blood is replaced by a saline solution, named, 

 because of its properties, the physiological solution. A turtle or a 

 frog in whose veins this fluid circulates continues to live for a con- 



