Salt injurious

It is everywhere admitted that taken in large doses sodium chloride is an "irritant poison." In smaller doses it is said to be a beneficial stimulant. This is a medical delusion. Stimulation and irritation are identical phenomena. The only difference between the stimulation of small doses and the irritation of large doses is that of degree, not of kind. Farmers use salt as an insecticide.
It is generally known that salt is commonly proscribed by regular physicians in diseases where elimination is impaired. This is especially so in kidney disease. Physicians employ a salt-free diet in epilepsy, in Bright's disease and often in tuberculosis, because of its deteriorating influence upon the nerves, kidneys and lungs. I can discover no reason why the detrimental influence should not be eliminated in all states of disease and in health, as well. 
Some individuals are said to be "allergic" to salt in the usual quantities eaten. So strong Is the delusion that salt is indispensable, these people are not advised to discontinue its use, but to use it in reduced quantities.
Salt is a powerful irritant. A small bit put into the eye or a cut will reveal its irritating power. Put into a cut or wound it causes a sharp pain. Taken into the body it has the same effect upon the tissues and nerves.
Salt is everywhere met with vital resistance - this resistance constituting its so-called "stimulating" effect. A teaspoonful of salt given to a child or to a non-user increases the heart beat ten or more beats a minute. A teaspoonful dissolved in a glass of water and swallowed, if the sensibilities of the stomach have not been too greatly impaired by the previous use of salt, will occasion vomiting. Or, much mucous is poured into the stomach to protect its delicate lining and the salt is flushed into the intestine, where more protective mucous is poured out upon it and it is hurried along to the colon and expelled. It occasions a diarrhea. In either case, it is hurriedly expelled from the system, because the organic instincts recognize that it is wholly innutritious and indigestible and an irritant.
All irritants "act" as "stimulants." The repeated use of any irritant results in debility and atony, these developing in a degree commensurate with the irritating effect of the substance. Such irritation or "stimulation" is wasteful of vitality and is never justifiable.
If salt is taken in small quantities, it is not met by such a violent reaction. Part of it finds its way into the blood, to be eliminated by the skin and kidneys. It is excreted as salt, having undergone no change in its passage through the system. The sweat of the salt eater is salty, it tastes of salt. The writer has many times seen the shirts of salt users, who were laboring hard in the heat of summer and sweating profusely, become stiff with salt. Salt could be seen upon the shirt, which smelled of brine. Such sweat is irritating to the skin and its glands. The sweat of the non-user is not so salty, and does not taste so strongly of salt.
It has long been observed that salt aggravates some conditions of organic deterioration, this being due to the inhibition it places upon the elimination of certain of the metabolic wastes of the body. For example, in Bright's disease, salt increases the edema (dropsy). Mayer mentions salt as one of the causes of war-malnutritional-edema. Berg agrees with him. In rheumatism or eczematous conditions the so-called "salt-rheum" is increased. Dr. Haig, of England, proved that the elimination of uric acid is impeded by salt. It increases blood pressure and acts as a stimulant. Its anti-vital properties make it an excellent embalming or pickling agent. Along with oils and spices, the ancient Egyptians used a salt solution in their mummy-wrappings to preserve the bodies.
"Salt dissolved in water in a certain proportion and taken internally before breakfast, cleanses the intestines," says one author. This only means that salt is an irritant and that taken in this way it induces rapid peristalsis - a so-called laxative effect. This very effect proves its unsuitableness for human consumption. It is also due to this irritating effect that salt is used in various baths to "stimulate" the skin. Stimulation is excitement. I recall one patient to whom a "salt-rub" was so "stimulating" that it left him exhausted and depressed for the remainder of the day.