of nearly two pounds of potatoes, with flesh, but without added salt, the
oedemia disappeared and the albumin in the urine diminished. As potatoes
are particularly rich in potash salts, this case is significant, as
showing contrary to expectations, that such quantity as they contained had
not the irritating effect of added common salt. Salt and other chlorides
have been shown by several observers, to be injurious, not only in
diseases of the kidneys, but also of the liver and heart. In these
diseases the excess of salt is retained in the tissues, it causes a flow
of fluid into them, and so produces oedema and favours the increase of
dropsy. The good effect of milk in such diseases has long been known; it
is probably due to its relative poverty in sodium and potassium chlorides.
Even in the case of three healthy men, by an abrupt change from a diet
extremely rich in chlorides to one deficient, they were able to reduce the
body-weight by as much as two kilos. (4 lbs. 6 oz.); this was by the loss
of an excess of water from their connective tissues. Sodium chloride
diminishes the solvent action of water on uric acid and the urates; but
potassium salts, on the contrary, do not, they may even increase the
action. Although nearly all the medical experience recorded has to do with
diseased persons, such cases are instructive; it is only reasonable to
suppose, that more than a very small quantity of salt in excess of that
natural to the food, is a source of irritation in the body, even of the
ordinarily healthy individual.

Summary.--Enjoyment of food is dependent upon appetite quite as much as
upon the nature of the food. Better a simple repast with good appetite
than sumptuous fare with bad digestion. There is indeed a causal
relationship between simplicity and health. The savage likes the noise of
the tom-tom or the clatter of wooden instruments: what a contrast this is
to the trained ear of the musician. Uncivilised man has little enjoyment
of scenery or of animal life, except as in respect to their power of