The History of Salt. Evan Martlett Boddy
or interesting; therefore I shall endeavour, though with some degree of diffidence, to consider it not only from a medical point of view, but to glance at some facts, both historical, geographical, and geological. By so doing, we shall be touching upon other matters not only pleasing but instructive, and which to a great many are but indifferently known; for though salt is to be almost universally seen on the tables of rich and poor alike, yet few are aware of its undeniable medicinal virtues, and many are totally ignorant of the great sustenance they derive from this indispensable and undoubtedly savoury condiment, besides being but moderately acquainted with its history. At the present time it is used nearly all over the world, and is acknowledged to be at least an adjunct necessary for perfect cookery; it is in requisition in fact everywhere, and even those who do not use it would be considered as lacking in taste were they to discard it altogether from their tables.
All, however, are to a certain extent cognisant of the fact of how insipid the daintiest dishes taste, if salt is omitted in their preparation, and the cook, however expert he may be in the culinary art, invariably fails in giving satisfaction (except to those whose palates are deranged or vitiated) if they are not seasoned with it; few, I think, will deny that animal food in particular is deprived of its pleasing flavour if it be eaten without salt. Those who have an unnatural aversion to it should bear in mind that the ingestion of improper animal and vegetable food frequently occasions many severe attacks of illness, and invariably provokes and intensifies that universal complaint, dyspepsia. George Herbert tells us in his Jacula Prudentum, that “Whatever the father of disease, ill diet is the mother;” and if food is taken into the stomach without its proper portion of salt, it is not what one would consider as wholesome; on the contrary, it is most decidedly “ill diet:” and being such, the system does not derive that kind of nutriment suitable for the promotion of a healthy action of the organs of the body, neither are the secretions in such a condition as is compatible with health. Physiologists inform us that the saliva1 holds salt in solution, and that it is also present in the gastric juice, which indicates at once how highly necessary it is for the system to be regularly supplied with it; for it is a physiological fact that the process of deglutition and digestion is partly due to the disintegrating and solvent action of these two secretions on the food, especially the latter; and consequently if the nutritious particles are to be absorbed in a state fit to make up for the waste of tissue, they ought to contain a sufficient amount of the chloride of sodium to take the place of that which has passed off through the media of the skin and the kidneys.
With these self-evident facts and a few physiological data before them (which really require no great effort to prove, so plain are they in their simple truth), all indeed must, or should be, convinced of the necessity of a liberal and judicious use of a substance which plays such an important part in the animal economy, and into which we shall enter more fully when we come to consider the relation which salt bears to food while it is going through the process of digestion.
Owing to the peculiar and incomprehensible prejudices of those who labour under the false impression that they are wiser and more discriminating than others, and who become proportionately obstinate in their notions, we shall endeavour to bring forward undeniable evidence in support of our arguments, though it is possible they may neither acknowledge that they are wrong, nor admit that their preconceived ideas prevent them from arriving at an unbiased conclusion. To such I have no hesitation in saying that they are much deceived if they imagine that the habit of abstaining from salt is contributive to health; such crabbed and confined views, however, are significant of the fact that human nature is frequently antagonistic to, and at cross purposes with, that which is ordained by the laws of nature to be beneficial.
I shall pass over the merits of salt as a seasoning to food, as it is my object to consider it solely in its relation to the animal economy, its operation in certain morbid conditions of the system, and its great importance as a health-preserver. But before proceeding, it will be as well to give a passing glance at its history and other attractive matter with which it is indirectly in relation; for though our investigations will be rather of a tentative character, and in a degree speculative, they may at least be interesting if not instructive. Perhaps others may be stimulated to penetrate deeper into the almost impenetrable obscurity with which the discovery of salt as a condiment is surrounded; and if they can bring to light who it was that primarily found out the chloride of sodium and utilised it as an adjunct to food, they will have solved a geological problem, and a long-standing historical enigma will be elucidated.
We possess no distinct and reliable data, and in fact no information of any kind, concerning salt in the early ages of the world as an article of diet, outside the pages of Scripture: all we really know, is, that in the infantile period of Europe, when the Indo-Germanic tribes entered it from Asia, though they were unacquainted with the sea, they were familiar with salt, as is proved by the recurrence of its name; yet whether they used it with their food we are by no means so sure of. The Kitchen-Middeners, who had their miserable dwellings on the wild shores of Jutland and similar inhospitable localities, might have been acquainted with it; but when we call to mind the nature of the food2 on which they lived, we may, I think, fairly conclude that they were ignorant of the use to which salt is now put; here again, however, we have only vague conjecture to fall back upon. The founder of Buddhism, Arddha Chiddi, a native of Capila near Nepaul, who subsequently changed his name to Gotama, and afterwards to Chakia Mouni, in his “Verbal Instructions,” when dealing with his inquiry into the nature of man, asks us to consider what becomes of a grain of salt when cast into the ocean. Of the epoch of Gotama, or Chakia Mouni, there is great diversity of opinion; the Chinese, Mongols, and Japanese fix it at B.C. 1000; the Cashmerians at B.C. 1332; and the Avars, Siamese, and Cingalese fix it at B.C. 600.
The reference which Gotama thus makes to salt shows us that he was familiarly acquainted with it, otherwise he would not have figuratively mentioned it.
We are completely in the dark regarding salt as a condiment till Moses, in the Book of Job, asks the pertinent question, “Can anything which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?” As this book was penned B.C. 1520, we may conclude with a tolerable degree of certainty that it was so used in the time of the great Jewish Law-giver, and as he was brought up in the court of Pharaoh, and was skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, it would point to the probability that salt was in common use in that ancient country.
The first mention we possess of salt is when Moses refers to the Vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. This vast reservoir was known as the Dead Sea,3 and is so to this day: so the Jews, who were commanded to use salt in their sacrifices, had a large natural depôt which afforded them a limitless supply of the necessary material for carrying on their worship, and likewise for individual consumption: they also mixed a certain amount of salt with their incense. The second reference is in relation to one of those extraordinary incidents with which the first five books of the Old Testament teem, and that is during the destruction of the “Cities of the Plain,” when Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for disobedience.
We also read of salt in the Iliad of Homer, and as he did not flourish till about B.C. 850,4 we must give the honour of marking it indelibly on the pages of history to Moses the Jew, who lived, if the above date is correct, 670 years anterior to the illustrious Father of epic poetry, and, if the Cashmerians are correct in their calculation, 188 years before Gotama gave to the world his eight hundred volumes, pointing out the path towards individual extinction or “Nirwana.”
We may likewise conclude that as it was known to the sagacious Hebrew, the æsthetic Greek, and the imaginative Asiatic, it was no doubt equally well known to the Egyptians, and probably amongst the neighbouring African tribes, long before the arrival of Joseph in the land of the Pharaohs, and centuries before the Oracle of Delphi was instituted.5
From the following lines we may justly conclude that the Greeks looked upon salt as sacred, and used it as a thank-offering, and that it even was an absolute necessity to go through the ceremony of washing their hands before touching it; such extreme care and scrupulous observance indicates that it was a substance held in the highest reverence:
“At this the Sire embraced the maid again,
So sadly lost, so lately sought