Despite the progress of science, the correction of dietetic errors and the various advanced methods of treatment for disease, sickness and death pursue their relentless path from month to month and year to year. Although exhaustive research on bacteria has proved effective to a great extent in coping with many diseases, it has been futile in the handling of maladies of baffling character, and now the attention of medical science has been directed to the enemy within the walls of the fortress. The keen eye of the medical profession looks askance upon sodium chloride, the accessory of every table, and this hapless condiment salt, is charged with treason. A traitor to health, instead of an agent of, it is to be banished from the table completely.
The diseases and poisons resulting from the excessive use of salt afford enough material for countless books to be written on the subject. You need no salt whatever in a diet of natural foods. The human system requires only about 15 grains per day of sodium chloride, yet the quantity taken by the average person is from 200 to 500 grains each day. Uncooked vegetables and fresh fruits contain sufficient of the natural salts, including sodium chloride, to meet the requirements of the body. Of course, when these vegetables and fruits are cooked, the mineral salts are drained off with the water into the sink; consequently some of the salts must be artificially restored to make the foods at all palatable.
Salt is a powerful irritant which stimulates the entire system and acts directly upon the organs of generation, inciting the sex impulses. Where this condition is persistent the over-functioning of the sex organs is the result, and disease and general depletion can only follow.
Salt contracts the muscles of the uterus and destroys their flexibility and elasticity. This is one of the reasons why Caesarian operations are a necessity in many cases. When salt has been dispensed with entirely, there will not be the heavy congestion and general tension in the pelvic and uterine region; the tissues will be soft and flexible, and a normal, natural birth without laceration will be achieved.
Research proves that salt is responsible for cancer. Experiments and profound study of the subject have disclosed the fact that cancer is a disease of civilization and is not found among tribes of savage people. Practically the only notable contrast between the foods of civilized and savage peoples is the addition of sodium chloride, or table salt, to the diet of civilization. Formerly cancer was a rare disease, but as the production of salt has increased in proportion to the demand, cancer has become more and more prevalent. Another startling fact is that cancer does not originate as a malignant growth, but is a simple, benign tumor which, due to persistent irritation and the inability of the bloodstream to heal, eventually passes into a malignant state -and proves fatal.
No cell of the body can become cancerous through its own independent action but must receive its irritating incentive from the chemical composition of the plasma (the fluid content of the blood), an agent of which is sodium chloride.
Medical science goes on to tell us that there must be an idiosyncrasy to salt in persons developing cancer. Thus, not all salt eaters develop cancer, but all cancerous people are salt caters.
Sodium and potassium are both elements in cell life, but sodium is found in greater quantities in the secretions and fluids of the body, whereas potassium exists in a greater degree as an ingredient in the cell. The equal distribution of these two elements in the cell constitutes a healthy cell. Hence, if a superfluous amount of sodium is taken into the body, the potassium element is crowded out, and although potassium is the rightful ingredient, the sodium displaces it and becomes the predominating element of the cell. Naturally the cell will try to eliminate an irritating substance, and then begins the first local inflammation.
Cancer is not a communicable disease and cannot be transmitted through hereditary influences. However, the idiosyncrasy to salt in the parent can be transmitted to the child, making it liable to a cancerous development.
Cancerous cases put upon a saltless diet and treated with administrations of potassium nitrate, which restores this missing element to the cell, have responded immediately to treatment and have been effectively cured.
Extensive inquiry has failed to disclose the authenticity of the generally-accepted report that all animals must have salt or they will perish. No one has ever witnessed the pilgrimage of animals to the natural salt springs, or “licks.” Deer frequently, at certain seasons, do resort to brine springs, but it is only a tradition that buffalo follow suit. Moreover, in these salt springs are found large amounts of lime, iron, sulphur and other minerals. As one authority has suggested, it is reasonable to assume that the wild animals may crave and seek at these springs certain minerals which nature deprives them of at that particular time of the year. Horses and cows of civilization are fed salt, but a block of the coarse salt used for this purpose lasts the animal many months. It is an artificial taste, and some horses and cows refuse salt when given it. Birds avoid it. It is fatal to chickens.
Why does man eat what animals are intelligent enough to reject.
One cancer specialist who is waging relentless war against the use of table salt, cites the case of a pet cat which was brought to him for treatment of a cancerous lip. Convinced of the popular fallacy that all animals must have salt, the owner had liberally seasoned the cat’s food with salt from the time it was a small kitten until it was about three and one-half years of age, at which time it developed cancer of the lip. The cat became sick and refused food and lost its fur. Given treatment for cancer precisely as a human patient, the cat was cured and a new coat of fur grown. Those who are worried over falling hair and imminent baldness should give this fact consideration. The cat’s fur fell out-it was ill and developed cancer when fed on salt. The salt was omitted from its food, the cancer cured and a new coat of fur was grown. Draw your own conclusions.
The human bloodstream contains three parts of sodium chloride to one thousand parts.
Salt is eliminated principally through the kidneys and skin. Statistics show that the average person consumes about two-thirds of an ounce of salt daily. About one-eighth is lost through the skin, and the greater part of the remainder is eliminated through the kidneys. Observation proves that salt disappears entirely from the urine when wasting is prolonged.
Dropsy is produced, in the majority of cases, by the accumulation of salt in the tissues-the kidneys are unable to eliminate the excess of salt, and as it is pushed out into the tissues it must, of course, be held in solution by water. For every half ounce of salt retained in the body, a pound of water will be retained to hold it in solution. Hence it will be easily understood why the weight increases in dropsy, Bright’s disease and edema.
Observation also shows that the kidneys fail to eliminate salt at the usual rate in various other diseases, including pneumonia, pleurisy, typhoid fever, jaundice, cirrhosis of the liver, smallpox and some forms of heart disease.
In extreme cases it has been observed that complete retention of salt preceded immediate death. Specimens of urine of patients suffering moderately from diabetes showed no sodium chloride whatever, although some was being taken in the food. Repeated examinations within twenty-four hours showed no trace of salt. At the end of the second day the patient was dead. There had been no previous symptoms of a serious condition. Other cases similar to this are on record showing in all instances that the complete retention of salt was fatal.
One two-hundredth of its weight in salt administered to a dog will cause convulsions and death.
A case was reported of a young woman whose death was induced by a half-pound dose of salt taken as a vermifuge.
Postmortems performed after deaths due to overdoses of salt have led to the conclusions that the excessive use of salt causes chronic kidney disease, as these postmortems reveal enlargement and heavy degeneration of the kidneys.
Practically no chemical change in salt is made by the cells of the body. In other words, the composition of salt remains unalterable, and if more salt is eaten than can be eliminated, the excess accumulates in the cellular walls, and subsequent irritation begins.
To people who have always been heavy salt-eaters, this anti-salt propaganda will come as a sensationally-new fad to be dismissed with a shrug. However, it is not new. The medical profession of the British Isles became involved in such a heated controversy in the latter part of the 19th century that the fraternity split into two factions-the Salts and the Anti-Salts. At this time, the leader of the anti-salt faction issued the statement that he would advise alcoholic drinks and vinegar in preference to the constant use of salt.
Salt was known to the ancients as a corrosive poison. The sages and philosophers of the early centuries knew of the injuries man incurred through the use of salt, and warnings against this indulgence were carved on tablets of stone.
Stefannsson, the explorer, in his narrative of experiences with the white Eskimos, stated that they had never tasted salt until he and his followers went among them. The Eskimo’s aversion to salt was very strong. To safeguard his meat supply Stefannsson had only to sprinkle it liberally with salt, and the light-fingered natives of the Polar region left it severely alone.
Dr. Harris Houghton of New York City, a writer and lecturer on pathological subjects, has demonstrated that salt is very dangerous to people with high blood pressure. He states that 80% of the high blood pressure cases can be promptly relieved by a carefully-administered saltless diet. Specialists in the treatment of diabetes and physicians famous for research in blood chemistry support Dr. Houghton in this saltless diet for blood-pressure cases.
Some conditions of extremely white skin are attributed to the destructive action of salt on the capillary circulation. Florid complexions, tendency to nose-bleed and a feeling of tension in the head constitute what is termed plethora, another symptom which is evidenced in cases of excessive salt eating. Still another symptom is progressive wasting and emaciation, especially in young children, where there is no obvious or ascertainable cause.
Salt throat, where the throat is more or less sore and streaked alternately with red and white, red circles on the fingers back of the nails (being a more pronounced color at this point than on other parts of the hand), and dandruff are all manifestations of a system crowded with sodium chloride.
It is a grave mistake to permit children to cat salt freely on such foods as celery, onions, radishes, etc. Some parents will even give the children salt in the palm of the hand when they seem to relish it. Neither children nor adults should have any salt added to their food, much less eat it plentifully as though it were a sweet. If parents realized that habits of early masturbation in children were a direct result of the eating of salty foods, they would be very guarded about the children’s diet Salt produces an irritation in the genital organs, which causes the child to scratch itself. As this continues, the irritation is apt to develop unwholesome desires in the child and lead him into habits which are ruinous to his mental and physical growth.
Cancer, hardening of the arteries, impaired vision, defective hearing, dizziness and insomnia are only a few of the many dangerous and chronic ailments which may be traced to cumulative salt poisoning.
Extreme sensibility to pain, undue irritability of the nerves, melancholia and many forms of sex perversion and abnormalities are direct results of the excessive use of sodium chloride.
Reformers rant and churches decry the social evils of the day, but if they would bend their energies toward spreading the gospel of pure, unadulterated, wholesome food, more would be accomplished in a few years than they will achieve in a century with their sermons on morality and abstinence.
Human beings are not basically immoral. They are victims of formidable enemies in the guise of highly-seasoned, irritating foods. With systems daily saturated with a mineral which acts directly upon the delicate and easily-aroused sex organs, the normal sex desires are so increased as to become an obsession which leads to abnormality and perversion and eventual insanity.
It is almost impossible not to eat some salt, particularly if many meals are eaten in a restaurant. Breads carry salt as well as butter and cheese. Sweet butter, however, may be obtained in many restaurants and is most delicious. Salted butter contains 30 grains of salt to the ounce, which totals 480 grains to the pound. The average person eats at least two to three ounces of butter a day. Some eat much more. In this one article of food alone, from 60 to 90 grains of salt are taken into the body, to say nothing of the other foods containing salt.
Once you have become accustomed to a salt-less diet, you will soon become very sensitive to the action of salt, and where you formerly ate salted meats and fish with great relish, you will find that they are not so palatable and leave the membranes of the throat and mouth dry and irritated.
If you want HEALTH, omit all salted foods and break yourself of the salt habit.
