for salt is an anagram of lacham - bread.
Indeed, salt pervades all organic structures
so intimately, that it is not possible to exclude
it from our diet. But salt has been disused
as far as possible by some inland tribes.
Homer, who interested himself in this
investigation, notes that the Epeirots ate no salt;
the Bathurst tribe of savages are almost the
only other known instances of like want of
taste. There exist, however, in society some
few human anomalies who abstain from salt
to a certain extent; and gloomy enough
their gastronomic souls must be; for, salt
is, in the material world, what the affections
are in the moral world—a zest and
relish, without which life would be tasteless
and insipid. The deprivation of salt was a
punishment among the Persians, Dutch, and
Russians. The prisoner condemned to it
suffered from fevers, and diseases of a low
type. They fell victims to parasites. Dr.
Leitch lately observed some of the diseases
engendered by a diet devoid of salt among
the State prisoners of Russia.

Elder writers are enthusiastic in praise of
salt. "Common salt," says Schrœder, "is
affirmed by the Monk Basilius, to be the most
delicious of all condiments, and the most
wholesome. It warms, dries, cleanses, dissolves,
astringes, destroys the superfluities,
penetrates, digests, resists poisons and putrefactions."
"An ancient Physician" told that excellent
philosopher, Mr. Boyle, that besides his
ardent prayers to God, and a very regular
diet, his constant antidote against the plague
was only to take every morning a little sea-
salt in a few teaspoonfuls of fair water, which
kept his blood soluble without weakening
him. More modern physicians have put
faith in salt and brandy as an antidote against
that plague of our later days—cholera. Salt-
water frictions daily advance into greater
vogue: as Mr. Meinig with "Daphne Sal
Marinum," will testify. We know, too, how
great is the efficacy of salt-water and sea-
breezes in repairing the ravages of a London
season upon the charms of rustic Phillis, or
restoring the shattered health of poor worn
out valetudinarian Lothario.

The inmates of Margate Infirmary can
tell a yet happier tale of the
beneficence of these salt-breezes. They can tell
of lingering diseases fortunately ended; of
long convalescence speedily consummated
by cure. Many the life which seemed
gradually ebbing away in the atmosphere
of a London hospital, that these briny
vapours have called back and fortified, and
cheered with long years of health. Salt plays
here the part of a good fairy; it makes of
this infirmary a sort of healing heaven for
the bodily sick. The London hospitals afford
a refuge to a maimed or diseased being who
has made no progress towards health, while
he had been doomed to remain in his own home,
in the thick stagnant atmosphere of a room,
crowded perhaps by three generations, and to
wear out a wretched life amidst dirt and
disease. Airy wards, good diet, skilful and
tender treatment, fan the flickering spark
into a feeble flame; but still he lies there
pale, sallow, with thin lips and sunken eyes;
And as month after month rolls on, the rapid
hours that found him so weak and worn,
leave no healing trace upon his thin brow. But
a vacancy occurs at the Margate Sea-bathing
Infirmary, and he is transported to the
atmosphere which the salt breezes have
purified and blessed with healing power.
Little other medicine does he need than
the fresh breeze and the pleasant vapour
of the sea: than baths and invigorating
exercise. By these, the poor victim who
lay so long upon the altar of Death—who
seemed for months to be within his very
clutches—is rescued. Death dallied with
him; and, seeing him weak and powerless,
delayed to slay this miserable captive,
while so many that were young and fair,
and eager to escape, awaited the stroke of
his sweeping scythe. But he loses his
victim by the virtues of salt. It is when
I contemplate salt from this stand-point,
that it seems to me to be no unfit subject
for all the extravagant laudations which
mystics and philosophers have lavished upon
it. I, too, am ready to call it divine and
blessed, a fifth element, the most precious
gift of Heaven.

The Pythagoreans held the sea to be a
separate element, in addition to fire, air,
and water, on account of the salt which it
contains. Euripides poetically designates the
ocean as the salt tears of Saturn. The sea
is still the chief source of the salt which
we use. There are one hundred and forty-
five millions of square miles of sea; each
gallon of its water containing forty per cent. of
salt. The whole mass therefore amounts to six
thousand four hundred and forty-one
billions of tons; so that, if the sea were
evaporated and the salt crystallised, the latter
would form a layer seven hundred feet thick
over the bottom of the sea, or two thousand
feet thick over the solid land of the earth.
But we draw largely for our salt upon the
masses deposited upon the earth in early
ages. These occupy various positions. In
one place salt is buried in cavernous
mines, which its beauty glorifies; in another,
it covers the surface of the land with a silvery
efflorescence. The largest and most
celebrated salt-mine—that of Wielickza, in
Galicia, possesses a bed of salt extending
four hundred and sixty miles, and has a
thickness of one thousand two hundred feet.
Salt here too retains its sacred relations.
Cunigunda—pious princess—drew down the
knowledge of the locality of this mine
by her prayers. A ring which she
threw into a salt spring in Hungary was
found in these mines. The miracle attested
her claim to their discovery. The accounts
of the salt plains of Abyssinia are shrouded