THE USE OF SALT TO MAN AND ANIMALS 



Common salt, or muriate of soda, is the salt 

 which has been longest known. Ita eil'ects up- 

 on man and animals are striking and important. 

 In moderate quantities it seems to be a natural 

 stimulant to the digestive organs, and is suppo- 

 sed to furnish the necessary supply of soda to 

 pres<;rve the bile in an alkaline and anti-septic 

 condition. The estimation in which salt was 

 held amongst eastern nations is very remarka- 

 ble, and may be traced to the highest antiquity. 

 Tiiere appears, however, to be one portion of 

 the globe in which salt is despised by many of 

 the people. " It much surprised me," says a 

 traveler, " to see some of the South American 

 aborigines cat their provisions without salt, 

 thougii they have it in great abundance. If you 

 ofi'er them any food that has the least grain of 

 salt in it, they spit it out with great disgust." 

 There are many countries in which salt has 

 never yet been found, and where, owing to the 

 little commercial intercourse, the inhaiiitants can 

 only occasionally indulge themselves with it as 

 a luxury. In the interior of Africa this is par- 

 ticularly the case. " It would appear strange to 

 an European," Mungo Park observes, "to see a 

 child suck a piece of salt as if it were sugar. 

 This, however. 1 have frequently seen, altiiough 

 the poorer class of inhabitants are so very rarely 

 indulged with this precious article. To say that 

 a man eats salt with his provisions is the same 

 as saying he is a rich man." This celebrated 

 traveler suffered great inconvenience from the 

 scarcity of salt; and any European who has 

 been accustomed to its u.se, experiences a pain- 

 ful longing for it when deprived of it. Moor- 

 croft and Trebeck, in their " Travels in the 

 Himalayan provinces," tell us that the Ladakhis 

 and Thibetans boil soda and fossil salt with their 

 tea, of which they drink large quantities in the 

 coarse of the day. It is important to be known 

 that one of the ill effects produced bj- an «n!3alt- 

 ed diet is the generation of worms. In the Lon- 

 don Medical Journal, (vol. xxxix.,) Mr. Mar- 

 shall has published the case of a lady who had 

 a natural antipathy to salt, and was consequent- 

 ly most dreadfully infested with worms during 

 the whole of her life. In Ireland, where, from 

 the bad quality of the food, the lower cla.«.ses arc 

 greatly infested with them, a draught of salt and 

 Avater is a popular and efficacious cure. Dr. 

 Paris has noticeii the bad ellccts of a diet of un- 

 salted fish. Ru.sh says that he hai? administered 

 many pounds of common salt with great success 

 in worm ca.ses. Lord Somerville, in his address 

 to the Board of Agriculture, gave an interesting 

 account of the etlects of a puuisliment which 

 formerly existed in Holland. " The ancient 

 laws of that country ordained criminals to be 

 kept on bread alone, « /(mixed with salt, as the 

 severest punishment that could b<; iuHicted upon 

 them in their moist climate. The etlect was 

 horrible ; these wretched criminals are said to 

 have been devoured by worms engendered in 

 their own stomaclis." The'wholesomeness and 

 digestibility of our bread are undoubtedly much 

 promoted bv the addition of salt, which it so uui- 

 (8-1)" 



versally receives. Dr. Dyer says that, in the 

 Mauritius, the planters' slaves rarely obtain salt, 

 and are therefore extremely subject to wonns, 

 while the Government slaves and the convicts 

 get salt in their rations, and seldom suffer from 

 those intestinal parasites. Some planters, re- 

 garding economy and the health of their slaves 

 at the same time, give a table-spoonful of salt in 

 half a pint of water to each slave regularly 

 every Saturday after work ; and they iind that 

 this dose acts not only as a vermifuge, but as a 

 tonic. A naval surgeon, who used to prescribe 

 salt water for his patients in all disorders, hap- 

 pened to be drowned one evening. Next day 

 the captain, coming on board, inquired for the 

 doctor, and was coolly told by a sailor that " he 

 was drowned last night in the medicine chest." 



The fondness of animals for salt is often re- 

 markable. Professor Gmelin tells us that a fe- 

 male wild ass which he brought to St. Peters- 

 burgh prefen-ed brackish water to fresh. In 

 their wild state, as.^es feed chiefly on the most 

 saline and bitter plants of the desert, as the ka- 

 lis, alriplices, chenopodium, &c. Biyant s.ays 

 they will discover distant waters by the smell ; 

 and one may infer that they do this by inhaling 

 the saline emanations from them. Sir Thomas 

 Bernard, in his interesting work, entitled " Ease 

 of the Salt Duties," says — " In visiting Alder- 

 man Farley's salt-works at Droitwich, in Au- 

 gust, 1817, I was stiTick with the appearance of 

 an old black horse, that worked the machine for 

 raising the brine. He 'was in vei-y good condi- 

 tion, and his coat was like the finest black satin. 

 I asked what made the horse so sleek and 

 plump ; the answer was. that he had regularly 

 a little salt in his chaff three days in the week, 

 about four ounces of it on each of the three days ; 

 or, if he was not very stout, then sometimes a 

 little more ; but that, in general, the horse was 

 very well, and did his work well. He said he 

 did not give him the whole four ounces at once, 

 but at several times, about a table-spoonful each 

 time. The horse had been purcha.sed b}' Mr. 

 Farley about four years ago, being then about 

 twenty years old, and his health and appear- 

 ance, thougli he had constant work, had very 

 much improved since; the salt, ho added, had 

 made him eat his food, and work better. ' Mr. 

 .lohn Taylor, the atrent of the London company 

 for working the Real del Monte silver mines in 

 Mexico, informed Dr. Paris that the ore. which 

 consists of the sulphu'ret of silver, is. together 

 with mercury, amassed in heaps with iron py- 

 rites and common .salt ; and that such is the 

 greediness of the mules employed in the works 

 for salt, that they are constantly licking the ma- 

 terials; the consequence is, that a portion of the 

 silver amalgam is introduced into their stom- 

 achs. The animals, however, .suffer no incon- 

 venience; but, after death, on opening their 

 stomachs, it is not unusual to find considei'able 

 ma-sses of silver, the mercury having escaped, 

 or been dissolved by the gastric juice. 



Camels, according to Mr. J. Wilkinson, will 

 drluk water which is too salt to be drank bv the 



