Salt is Good.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 978, 28 November 1890, Page 9

Salt is Good.

* Salt is good.’ It is the language of inspiration as -well as of therapeutics. In all the range of the household materia mediea there is no remedy half so valuable as common salt, both because of its real curative properties and of its immediate availability. And, moreover, it has this advantage over more pretentious remedies, that seldom in case of over-zeal or mismanagement can it be made to do mischief. If it doesn’t heal it won’t kill, at any rate. Here are some of the things it is good for: Heated dry and applied to the outer surface over the seat of inflammation or congestion, it will give almost instant relief, while applications of a strong, hot solution of salt in water or vinegar act like magic upon toothache, earache, neuralgic headache, and all that brood of distressing ills.

For catarrhal affections and sore throat a spray of warm water and salt is almost a specific, and is one of the standard prescriptions of the ‘ nose and throat ’ specialists. For hay fever and those other slighter forms of nasal sensitiveness that induce a constant sneezing there is no remedy more quickly palliative, and often curative, than the vapour of heated salt and alcohol.

For those who have sensitive gums, inclined to bleed on the slightest provocation, a mouth wash of salt and cold water used once or twice a day will harden the gums and prevent soreness. As salt is a styptic, any slight bleeding may usually be checked by treating the part with salt and water. Persons who have tender feet will find them growing much less sensitive day by day if treated to a daily brisk rubbing with cold salt and water.

Beside all this, salt is good for the stomach. A pinch of it in hot water, taken either just before or just after a meal, is a valuable aid to digestion, and a cupful of very hot salt water will sometimes quiet the most persistent nausea.

Anything more that salt will do ? Yes, the most grateful of all—cure the toothache sometimes. ‘ Will it really do that ?’ A little girl who was told to put some in an aching tooth says so. ‘I just put in a little salt,’ she said,

I ‘ and in a few minutes I felt the naughty, aching nerve curl right down 1 and go to sleep.’ But there is one caution to offer. However beneficial the therapeutic action of salt may be, there is no question but salt taken into the system with the food in too great quantities is extremely harmful. It was the excessive use of salt, quite as much as the nervous strain of his campaign, that killed Horace Greelej’-, and there be those who declare that with many women . the use of salt is a species of dissipation. Too much salt in the system dries up the blood and the healthy moisture of the membraneous surfaces, and is evidenced by a dead yellow palor of the skin, with a blanching of the lips and cheeks, and a morbid craving for the condiment which nothing but its use in enormous quantities will satisfy.