June 9, 1881] 



NA TURE 



123 



while the fact that the gases in passing through the small 

 tubes would encounter much greater resistance than in 

 the single flue rendered the successful employment of the 

 multitubular boiler dependent on the increased action he 

 could give to the blast. However in all respects he came 

 out right in the very first trial. 



In the " Rocket " he had a self-moving machine, 

 which resembled the moving animal not only in the 

 fact that they both derived their power of motion from 

 the combustion of carbon, but the physiology of the 

 machine resembled that of the animal system in that 

 essential particular which connects the action of the 

 heart and lungs with that of the muscles, so that any 

 demand upon the activity of the latter is at once met 

 by increased activity in the former. In the locomotive 

 the law of adjustment is perfect. Whatever the load 

 within the limit imposed by the adhesion of the wheels, 

 and whatever the speed, the stimulating action on the 

 fire is sufficient, and no more than sufficient, while in all 

 cases the tubes are sufficiently long, and no more, to pass 

 the heat genei-ated into the boiler. 



The functions of the locomotive engine more nearly 

 correspond with the functions of moving animals than do 

 the functions of any other machine, and hence it was 

 essential that there should be a correspondence between 

 the organisation of the locomotive and that of working 

 animals, which correspondence may be dispensed with 

 in other engines. Is it not probable, we ask, that he who 

 produced the locomotive physiologically complete had 

 been guided, however unconsciously, by the truth of his 

 observation of those animals which his machine was to 

 -et free from their task ? Osborne Reynolds 



THE HISTORY OF SALT 



The History of Salt. By Evan Marlett Boddy. (London: 



Baillia^re, Tindall, and Cox, 1881.) 



THIS book is quite a literary curiosity : the author 

 hopes, and not without reason, that it will be found 

 to afford amusement. Mr. Boddy we take to be a medical 

 student, and it is a kindness to him to suppose that he 

 is young. After reading the first half-dozen pages of 

 his work the idea gradually dawned upon us that he 

 intended it for an elaborate joke, very much after the 

 manner, we should suppose, of Mr. Benjamin Allen and 

 Mr. Robert Sawyer, had those gentlemen been tempted 

 to follow the paths of literature. But, adhibenda est in 

 jocando moderatio, and never more so than when the joke 

 is at the e.xpense of a venerable parent. In dedicating 

 his work to his father Mr. Boddy, for the credit of human 

 nature, must be acquitted of the charge of a conscious 

 joke, otherwise such an instance of filial disrespect would 

 be without parallel. 



This astonishing production owes its origin to a letter 

 advising total abstention from salt, which had appeared 

 in a temperance journal, and the author felt himself 

 constrained, for the good of humanity, to deliver himself 

 of the succession of '^farcical puerilities " and " whim- 

 sical crudHics " which make up the " imaginative 

 plerophory " " redundant of inane folly and trivial 

 hyperbole" of his book. The words in italics are Mr. 

 Boddy's ; he of course applies them to the opinions of 

 other people. With the sanction of Vespasian's law. 



that it is unlawful to give ill language first, but civil and 

 lawful to return it, we think ourselves justified in applying 

 them to Mr. Boddy's book. And how richly that book 

 merits them we proceed to make abundantly clear, and 

 on the author's own showing. 



Mr. Boddy is too hard upon the unfortunate letter- 

 writer in the journal of temperance : he is not even 

 grateful to him as the remote cause of the existence of 

 his own book. The letter-writer, " with amusing self- 

 complacency, accused it [salt, not temperance] of pro- 

 ducing evils of an astounding nature — such is the latitude 

 of pragmatical ignorance and silly egotism. The palpable 

 absurdity of such an argument must be apparent even to 

 the most careless thinker : it is with the view of exposing 

 such a fallacy, both injurious and irrational, that I have 

 written this treatise." One is tempted to ask — If the 

 argument is so palpably absurd, even to the most careless 

 thinker, why in the world has Mr. Boddy taken the 

 trouble to write his treatise ? 



It does not seem to be generally known what would 

 happen to a world devoid of salt ; such, according to Mr. 

 Boddy, is the " dense obtenebration with which the sub- 

 ject is surrounded." The picture of a saltless world, as 

 drawn by our author, is something awful to contemplate. 

 Nothing but the thought of " our ignorant conceits,'' our 

 "unaccountable obliquity of judgment," and "the apa- 

 thetic indifference " with which we have hitherto looked 

 upon the humble condiment which has graced our tables 

 " in the smallest receptacles, as if it were the most 

 expensive article," and to which we, " in the most finical, 

 grotesque manner," help ourselves "in almost infini- 

 tesimal quantities, as if it were a mark of good breeding 

 and delicacy," would compel us to reveal the " imaginative 

 plerophory." The nervous reader will be pleased to 

 fortify himself with at least a teaspoonful of the condiment 

 before he begins its perusal. 



" Were the human race once deprived of the chloride 

 of sodium, even for a limited period of time, we should 

 not only lose a natural healthful incentive for our food, 

 but disease, with all her attendant miseries, would 

 spread with such relentless impetuosity as would defy, 

 and even paralyse, the efforts of the most skilful physician, 

 the ingenuity of the surgeon, and the scientific improve- 

 ments and hygienic precautions of the sanatarian. The 

 strength and' vigour of manhood would fade as if blasted 

 by disease, food would act as a poison, the blood would 

 not be replenished with the salt which it requires, and 

 consequently our skins would soon be covered with cor- 

 ruption, our cattle would die, our crops would be nipped 

 in the bud, the air would be full of offensive insects, the 

 soil would become foul and barren, the sea a waste of 

 stagnant waters, and all the beautiful productions of 

 nature would wither and decay, and our glorious earth 

 would degenerate into a hideous solitude, solely inhabited, 

 very probably, by monsters horrible to behold, more 

 repulsive than those gigantic reptiles which once roamed 

 by the dreary marshes of an incomplete world." 



And yet, according to Mr. Boddy, "the Enghsh working 

 classes are nearly, if not altogether, unacquainted with the 

 benefit of salt " : " at the tables of the wealthy it is per- 

 fectly absurd to see the small amount which is used." We 

 are not even allowed the poor consolation of knowing that 

 in our false economy we are unwittingly conserving our 

 choicest blessing. "We do not diet ourselves as we 

 should : in this respect we are far behind the veriest 



