The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1872-05-24
Why Do We Use salR.

ton OF animal existence. Hence, it
is wise provision that, like that
equally indispensable substance,
water, salt is to be found all over
the globe; existing, especially, in
large proportion in the waters Of
great oceans as we'll as on the land,
in solid strata of rock salt, and dis
Olved in greater or less quantity in
the water Of its springs.
Indeed, it is SO universally pres
ent that it is seldom we have an op-
portunity Of observing the effects of
its complete deprivation upon ami
NAL health or life. But, according
to Warden, in the northern districts
of Brazil where, doubtless, the solu-
bic salts of the elevated land have
long since been washed into the
ocean IN the numerous tributaries of
the Amazon, the domestic animals
die, if not periodically supplied with
salt.
The central elevated regions of
Southern Africa, and portions of
Central Southern Asia exhibit the
same condition, and here also the
effects of deficiency of salt on the
animal economy may be studied.
Mungo Park long ago informed
us that in the interior of Africa salt
was sometimes bought with its
weight in gold, and that his own
longings for this substance, after be-
ing subjected to strict vegetable
diet for some time, could not be eX-
pressed in words. Indeed, we are
told by other travellers that in sever
al parts of Africa men were barter
ed for salt, and a brother would sell
his sister, for slave, to obtain this
much coveted substance.
DR.. David Livingston, in his re-
cent account Of his explorations in
South Africa, corroborates the ac-
count of Mungo Park, and states
that not only did he experience Il
great longing for suit, or animal
food, after having been restricted
for long time to an exclusive veg
etable diet, but that the digestive
powers were also always impaired.
Dyspepsia thus induced, was east
ly cured by the use Of animal food;
which, even milk or eggs, always
had a marked salty taste to the per-
son unused to that diet; but it could
be as effectually relieved sometimes
by the use of salt alone.
Knowing how important salt and
its elementary constituents are to the
digestion and assimilation Of food,
the question naturally arises, are not
many cases eff dyspepsia occasiOned
by q too scanty use Of salt with the
food, and may not many cases be
relieved as were those under the OBJ
servation of DIR. Livingston, by
more free use Of that salubrious az
ticle?
The salty taste of animal food IS
easily explained by the fact, often
demonstrated by chemical analysis,
that's all animal bodies, as we'll as the
solid and fluid parts of them, as well
as all animal secretiOns and eXcre-
tiOns, contain common salt. When
the soft parts Of the animal body are
incinerated, common salt is found
to form more than one-half of the
weight of the ash. TIE same is the
case with the ashes of the blood,
which, like the milk and the white
ofthe egg, not only always contains
this substance as necessary ingre-
dent, but also a certain constant
proportion Of carbonate Of soda
which is doubtless derived from the
decomposition of the salt.
1t is, hence, to be easily under
stood why caTniverous animals and
persons who live on an animal diet,
are not as much dependent on the
habitual use of salt with their food,
as those confined to a strictly veget-
able regimen. tits especially in the
herbivious animals of the interior
that this necessity is most apparent
those living near the sea finding
usually enough salt in the herbage
and water to supply their wants .
salt appears to be instructive; lead
ing the wild animals hundreds of
miles through the cane brake, in
former times, to the distant salt
ticks, and periodically bringing our
grazing animals, at the call of the
graZer to receive with eager demon
STATIONS their weekly dole of salt.
In many respects is a certain
quantity of salt necessary to the
animal functions. 1t is always
found in the serum of the blood in
the proportion offrom to 5.5 per
cent. in which it seems to be neces-
sary to the preservation of the red
blood corpuscles; which, when i'm
mersed in water containing no salt,
absorb it in undue proportion, burst
and arc dissolved. The salt also
gives solubility to the albumen, and
restraints ,the coagulabilIty Of the
fibriu. 1t is always accomplished in
the blood, and in albuminous fluid,
as we'll as in milk, with a certain
proportion of carbonate of soda, by
which mainly the caseum or curd of
the milk is held in a fluid state. If
the who'd body it aids the power of
life, as an antiseptic, in resisting I'M
due decomposition; which it greatly
aids in the removal of effote mat
tiers.
While it is indispensable in its
formal state, to the very constitution
of the body and its fluids, it furnishes
by its decomposition, under the in
fuence of the nervous polarity of the
body, the soda witch is necessary to
the bile, the blood, the milk and all
albuminous fluids as well as the by
drochlorid acid, which is one of the
active solvents of the digestive flu
ids of the stomach
For many reasons, then, is salt
indispensable to animals, and as it