SALT FOR ANIMALS. 

 Dairy and Table Salt. 



31 



ON SALT AS A PROMOTER OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



Natural instinct, no doubt, has induced man and beast to 

 make use of common salt. Its intrinsic value was always well 

 recognized ; the oldest writings, sacred and profane, refer to it 

 by using its name frequently in a figurative sense ; it had en- 

 tered as an ingredient, with an emblematical meaning, in the 

 Jewish dispensation ; heathenish authors spoke in praise of it ; 

 Pytliagoras calls it a substance dear to the gods. Homer calls it 

 divine, Plutarch speaks of it. as a symbol of the soul. The 

 Arabs of the present day, we are told, use it as an emblem of 

 hospitality, and the Abyssinians carry pieces of salt with them to 

 offer it for tasting to those whom they wish to meet as friends. 

 "We ourselves consider it an important spice to render our 

 food palatable, and believe its direct use, within proper limits, 

 almost indispensable for the continuation of the normal func- 

 tion of our organs of digestion and secretion. Almost all wild 

 and taitied herbivorous animals, without exception, hunt by 

 natural instinct for sources of salt to supply their craving. The 

 opinion that the direct use of salt as an addition to our food was 

 not necessary for the support of animal life — for most articles of 

 our food did contain already a sufficient amount of it to answer 

 for all practical purposes — may be true under particular, excep- 

 tional circumstances, and as far as a mere maintenance of life is 

 concerned ; yet as soon as the promotion of a vigorous animal 

 life in general comes into consideration it has lost its force 

 as an argument, particularly as far as our domestic herbiv- 

 orous animals, as horses, cattle, sheep, and the like are con- 

 cerned. We concede, also, as far as man is concerned, that 



