Look, however, at the other side of the argument as drawn from the lower animals. How numerous are they by whom salt is rejected or to whom it is hurtful? The whole of the birds avoid salt. It is fatal to chickens and tame birds, as every housewife knows. Indeed, there is strong ground for supposing that much of what is called “chicken cholera,” “gapes,” and the like, is in part due to the presence of salt—not always in minute quantities—in the food taken from the table. Wild birds have no such epidemic diseases affecting the mucous linings of their organs. It is also fatal to the hog, that foulest and hardiest of omnivora, which, out of some stress of famine, or from its peculiar prolificacy, men have been led to dwell with and propagate as a food supply. I believe it is well ascertained that when hogs get a moderate amount of brine, or pickled salt meat, it is impossible to save them. To vary the phrase a little: that which will make a hog sick cannot, _prima facie_, be good food for his owner. Of all the range of wild animals, clean or unclean, it is yet to be shown that a single one eats salt voluntarily as food. Why should man be the exception? It is further claimed that salt is a necessary constituent of the diet, for the reason that, when the body is examined, _post-mortem_, a certain amount of salt is found therein. From this it is argued that salt is therefore necessary to the human body! It is queer logic. Were opium or nicotine found in the body of the dead man, would it be argued that _therefore_ opium or nicotine were necessary to the body in health? Yet the argument is just as logical, and the conclusion just as warranted. All that can be urged, logically, is that salt is a necessary article of diet; and that, no one would deny. Certainly I would not. But I must insist that this salt can be supplied to the body in its _organic_ form—just as any other salt can. It is contained in fruits and vegetables, together with other salts: why not eat it in that way, just as we eat those other salts? To be sure, we need common salt, just as we need iron, and potash, and sulphur, and lime, and other mineral salts; but no one thinks of sprinkling lime and potash and iron filings over his food, just the same! There is no more reason why we should sprinkle sodium chloride, or common salt, over our food, than there is why we should sprinkle any of these other salts. Both are equally mineral elements: both are inorganic substances; and hence both are equally unusable by the system. Salt can have no more effect upon the economy than iron filings can; and there is no more reason for taking the one into the system in this crude form than there is for taking the other. Only habit and prejudice sustain the custom.