PRACTICAL INVESTIGATION. 33 



their purpose, or are worthless whilst in an excess present, they 

 conclude quite properly that an increased secretion of urine and 

 V perspiration may dispose of these obnoxious substances more 

 freely, and thereby render a somewhat abnormal high stall feed- 

 ing and a want of desirable exercise less serious. The results 

 of practical investigation, it appears, may be summed up in the 

 following statement: salt does not increase directly the live 

 weight, yet it favors an economical digestion and assimilation 

 of the requisite normal amount of food, and it allows us, if de- 

 sirable, to feed our stock high without incurring a particular 

 corresponding risk ; it enables us thus to shorten the time for 

 getting our live stock up to a desirable market value, and as- 

 sists us, under certain circumstances, to dispose advantageously 

 of a larger proportion of other farm productions, as grain, hay, 

 etc., in the form of live weight. 



Having thus far considered merely what direct experimental 

 investigation seems to teach, it may not be without some inter- 

 est to see what results chemical and physiological inquiries here 

 have ascertained. Numerous analyses of animal substances 

 have established the fact, that the soda compounds and chloride 

 of sodium (salt) in particular, represent in every instance the 

 main portion of the soluble inorganic substances of the ashes of 

 the entire mass of any animal of the order of mammalia. It 

 has been proved that our own system in its normal condition 

 does contain a certain amount of salt, and that every class of 

 animals contains it in a particular proportion, varying only 

 within certain limits. It has also been ascertained that salt forms 

 an important part of the soluble saline inorganic compounds of 

 various secretions, as perspiration, mucus and urine, and that 

 the kidneys in particular are the organs which dispose of its 

 excess consumed. As salt (chloride of sodium) furnishes by 

 far the largest portion of the soda compounds, which the an- 

 imals of a higher order consume, it has been presumed that 

 the main portion of the soda compounds found in the animal 

 system has been directly derived from the chloride of sodium 

 consumed. This assumption implies, as a natural consequence, 

 that chloride of sodiummust necessarily act in two directions, 

 in its unchanged state and in its products of decomposition ; 

 the presence of free hydro-chloric acid (muriatic acid) in our 

 stomachs suggests this view. Knowing that it renders, under 



