In rheumatic fever the blood is even thicker than it is in other fevers; in acute rheumatism the patient is generally bathed in profuse perspiration night and day, and the sweat contains a good deal of lactic acid. The acid in the gastric juice is supposed by some physiologists to be lactic acid, whilst others affirm that it is hydrochloric acid; there is, however, such a similitude that one acid is barely distinguishable from the other. The blood in this fever therefore loses much more salt than in other febrile conditions, which explains the acute pain in the joints and the desire the patient has for salt. Blood in a thickened condition cannot pass through the blood vessels near joints without giving much pain, owing to the unyielding nature of the parts; and the fibrine also has a tendency to stagnate if the blood does not flow as it should. In some cases of sickness, when not accompanied with vomiting, half a teaspoonful of salt in a little water is sometimes most effective. Whenever there is a feeling of nausea the stomach is relaxed, there is the usual amount of the gastric juice, but it is deficient of the hydrochloric acid; therefore a small solution of salt takes the place really of the acid, and the sickness is relieved, it likewise supplies the chloride of sodium, which has been abstracted from the gastric fluid. In violent attacks of colic, if there is no other remedy at hand, a teaspoonful of salt in a pint of cold water, which the patient may sip, is most speedy in relieving the sufferer. The same will also relieve a person who has had a heavy fall and is partly unconscious. In hæmorrhage from the lungs, when the usual remedies have failed, a solution of salt will sometimes arrest it. When applied to a cut the bleeding ceases. These little facts are well worth knowing, because salt is always to be found in every home, and so may be given or applied in case there is no medical man at hand; matrons and nurses of small hospitals, infirmaries, and workhouses should be acquainted with them in case of an emergency. We have now before us the properties of salt in a medical and dietetic sense; that indirectly it is a therapeutical agent of some value cannot be denied; that it is an important aliment is a fact which cannot be explained away; and that it is a preserver of health all must allow. That it is of a deleterious tendency is a mere assertion as unsubstantial as “thin air,” and as flimsy as gossamer—_magno conatu, magnas nugas_. CHAPTER VIII. PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES. Prejudice is the daughter of ignorance; and nothing exemplifies the truth of this more thoroughly than the senseless repugnance to salt which is now so remarkably prevalent. Ask these persons for their reasons, if we can dignify them as such, for disliking salt; their answers, as a rule, will be trifling platitudes, altogether unworthy of refutation, or even of moderate attention.