The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-10-01
DON,T ~CUT QUIZ sAIr.

There Is an old story of schoolboy,
directed to write a definition of salt,
who described 1t as 1.-The thing that
tastes so queer when you forget to put
it in" Human beings and animals as
rule enjoy a little salt in their food.
Too much salt is not good, and, as
sailors are well aware. helps to pro-
duce the disease called scurvy. It is
also said that enforced total absten-
ton from salt causes the same dis
ease. If this Is true, 1t is a point for
the homeopathists. The Encyclopedia
Britannica says: ut has been plaus-
IDLY conjectured that the oldest trade
routes were created for traffic in salt"
A London doctor named Sugar re-
Gently attacked the salt-eating habit.
whereupon many of his medical breth-
rem expressed dissent from his opinion.
One of them said:
Every few people eat too much salt.
The physiological advantages from
eating salt outweigh any disadvantages
through Incorporate use. Salt should
be eaten by all. and especially by chill
dren and young persons. It Is an
absolute necessity for vegetarians. The
sulphates and carbonates and the
traces of ferric oxide (iron) and
phosphate of lime contained in salt
can not be taken in cheaper or bet
ter FORM
The controversy recalls an interest
ing passage in the writings Of David
Livin gstone, the greatest of the ex-
! plorers of Africa. In his missionary
| Travels" he says:
1.-THE Bakwains often killed between
sixty and seventy head of large game
at the different hopos in a single week,
and as everyone. both rich and poor.
partook of the prey. the meat counter
acted the bad effects of an exclusively
! vegetable diet. When the poor, who
had no salt. were forced live entirely
on roots, they were often troubled
with indigestion. Such cases we had
| frequent opportunities of seeing at
other times. for. the district being &es-
tltute OF salt. the rich alone could af-
ford to buy 1t. The native doctors,
aware of the cause of the malady,
usually prescribed some of that in
gredient with their medicines. The
doctors themselves had none. SO the
poor resorted to US for aid. We took
the hint. and henceforth cured the dis
ease by giving a teaspoonful Of salt,
minus the other remedies. Either
milk or meat had the same effect,
though not so rapidly as salt. Long
afterward, when was myself deprived
of salt for four months. at two dis
tinct periods, felt no desire for that
condiment, but I was plagued by very
great longing for the above articles of
| food. This continued as long as I was
! confined to an exclusively vegetable
diet. and when procured a meal of
flesh, though boiled in perfectly fresh
rainwater. 1t tasted as pleasantly salt
ish as II slightly impregnated with the
| condiment."
| What Livingstone says of the utility
OF meat diet to mitigate the need of
salt is instructive, but there is this to
be added, that much depends upon
how the meat Is cooked. If boiled In
stead of roasted, meat usually needs
salt to aid in its digestion as much as
vegetables require salt for the same
purpose. There have been times and
places in the history of the world
when cakes of salt have been used as
money. AS an antiseptic and food
preventative salt has a value impossi-
bit to overestimate. 1t was foolish of
DR.. Sugar, at this stage of human ex-
perience. to blow a blast against the
use Of salt.