The history of salt

In Short

Evan Marlett Boddy’s nineteenth-century monograph is a defense and historical survey of common salt. Reacting against contemporary health fads that branded salt as harmful, Boddy traces the mineral’s historical usage, natural occurrence, geological enigmas, and biological necessity. He moves from ancient Egyptian customs and biblical references to subterranean mines and microscopic cellular functions. The work endures as a fascinating window into Victorian medical philosophy, blending early clinical science, classical history, and a crusading defense of a vital nutrient against public apathy and pseudo-scientific prejudice.

The Story

Boddy opens with a sharp polemic against the "medico-social phantasmagoria" of his day—the trendy health fads and pseudo-scientific theories that urge people to scrupulously avoid salt. He argues that public indifference and intellectual vanity have blinded society to the necessity of basic, everyday natural substances. To restore salt to its proper esteem, he builds a broad historical and scientific foundation.

He turns first to antiquity, positioning ancient Egypt as the primary fountainhead of human knowledge. Boddy demonstrates how Egyptian medical and cultural practices surrounding salt filtered outward, influencing the religious and hygienic traditions of the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, and Persians. He highlights the ancient Jewish custom of rubbing newborn infants with salt to firm their skin, along with their reliance on salt as a protective shield against cutaneous diseases such as leprosy. Turning to scriptural authority, he points out that the book of Job recognizes salt as the original condiment, while the New Testament explicitly validates its intrinsic goodness.

Expanding his scope to natural history, Boddy explores the oceanic and geological origins of salt. He marvels at the massive machinery of global evaporation, explaining how the sun extracts sweet water from the saline seas to nourish the land, while the specific gravity and salt content of the ocean determine its striking blue or green colors. Yet, when examining land deposits, Boddy concedes that salt remains a geological enigma. Unlike standard rock formations, salt deposits appear erratically across wildly different geological strata—from the transition slate of New York to the Austrian Alps—defying uniform explanation. He takes the reader on a tour of global deposits, pausing to vividly describe the subterranean city of the Wieliczka salt mine near Cracow, where generations of families live and work amidst glittering crystal caverns.

The final third of the book turns to biology and medicine, where Boddy presents his core scientific argument. He demonstrates how salt acts as a vital element for both animal and vegetable life. In livestock, salt prevents fatal fluke-worm infections in sheep and improves milk production in cattle, while salt-marsh environments protect surrounding human populations from miasmatic fevers. In the human body, chloride of sodium is a non-negotiable component of blood, lymph, and tissue. It supplies the necessary hydrochloric acid for gastric digestion and prevents blood from prematurely coagulating during fevers. Boddy refutes the popular belief that salted meat directly causes scurvy, blaming the disease instead on spoiled provisions, low-grade ship biscuits, and excessive grog. Ultimately, he proves that salt is an essential anti-parasitic agent—capable of destroying deadly trichinae in pork—and concludes that true physical health is impossible without it.

How It Unfolds

The crusade against ignorance Boddy launches his treatise by attacking fashionable medical theories that falsely condemn essential natural substances like salt. He blames public apathy and visionary charlatans for turning people away from basic, health-sustaining habits.

Lessons from the ancient world The narrative moves to historical analysis, showing how Egyptian scientific ascendancy passed salt-based customs to the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews. Boddy cites the biblical tradition of rubbing infants with salt and highlights its ancient use as a preventative shield against leprosy.

The ocean and the earth Boddy shifts to physical geography, describing how solar evaporation creates rain from the sea and how salinity alters the ocean's color. He surveys global deposits, detailing the underground city of the Wieliczka salt mine in Galicia, complete with its crystal houses, sunless streets, and subterranean dwellers.

Geological puzzles and natural life The text delves into the erratic placement of salt across different rock strata, admitting its origin remains an unsolved geological mystery. Boddy then proves its value in agriculture, showing how salt wards off fluke-worms in sheep and eliminates miasmatic fevers near coastal salt marshes.

The biological verdict Boddy concludes with a physiological defense of salt in human health. Through data tables and clinical arguments, he shows that chloride of sodium is essential for stomach acid, blood balance, and parasite prevention, concluding that life cannot be maintained without it.

The People

Because The History of Salt is a scientific and historical monograph rather than a narrative work of fiction, its "characters" are the historical figures, ancient cultures, and historical observers whose arguments Boddy marshals:

• Evan Marlett Boddy: The author and medical crusader. He seeks to eradicate popular medical superstitions, defend salt as a non-negotiable biological necessity, and restore public appreciation for basic natural science.
• The Ancient Egyptians: The intellectual pioneers of antiquity. In Boddy’s history, their early mastery of science and hygiene allowed them to act as the primary disseminators of knowledge, exporting salt-based customs to the rest of the Mediterranean world.
• The Hebrews: An ancient Asiatic people plagued by cutaneous afflictions. They utilized salt not merely as a food seasoning, but as an essential hygienic shield against debilitating diseases like leprosy, setting an enduring standard for public sanitation.
• The Toilers of the Sea: Nineteenth-century sailors who suffer from scurvy and poor health. Boddy defends them against claims that salt is their ruin, placing the blame instead on corrupt shipowners who supply rotten biscuits, spoiled pork, and excessive rum.

In Its Own Voice

"Another hindrance which to a considerable extent precludes the study of what one may truthfully designate every-day subjects, is the restless furor for artful counterfeits of science, which are nothing else than the emanations of vain and visionary minds mixing together, as it were, an amalgam of truth and error."

Boddy laments how sensationalized pseudo-science distracts the public from understanding the basic elements of health.

"He beholds a spacious plain containing a kind of subterranean city, with houses, carriages, and roads, all scooped out of one vast rock of salt, as bright and glittering as crystal..."

The author marvels at the architectural wonders carved inside the ancient Polish salt mine of Wieliczka.

"The answer to the question propounded by the persecuted man of Uz is the same now as it was three thousand years ago—there is nothing savoury without salt, and to a certainty there is no real permanent health without salt."

Boddy uses the biblical story of Job to anchor his thesis that salt is fundamental to both appetite and physiological survival.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the book is a defense of empirical observation against ideological fads and popular apathy. Boddy uses salt as a case study to argue that humanity routinely overlooks the most vital components of natural life simply because they are common. Underneath the historical anecdotes and medical statistics lies a fundamental argument about physiological balance: the human body is an extension of natural chemistry, and attempting to remove basic inorganic elements like chloride of sodium out of moral or theoretical fastidiousness leads directly to physical decay. Boddy insists that true medical science must be anchored in observed physical facts—such as blood composition and historical survival—rather than the sweeping denunciations of popular health reformers.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers interested in the history of medicine, science, and gastronomy will find Boddy’s work a captivating period piece. It offers a rare look at late-nineteenth-century medical debates, capturing the exact moment when early modern chemistry and clinical analysis were beginning to merge with historical scholarship. Reading it feels like sitting in a Victorian lecture hall with a passionate, slightly combative physician who is eager to dismantle the wellness fads of his day.

The book does present a few era-specific challenges. Boddy’s prose is unapologetically formal, dense with classical references, and occasionally prone to verbose Victorian polemics. Readers must also navigate dated ethnological assumptions—such as his sweeping views on ancient civilizations—and outdated medical terminology. However, these period quirks do not obscure the work's sharp intelligence. Boddy’s description of the glittering underworld of the Wieliczka mine and his vigorous defense of sailors' working conditions linger long after reading. It remains a deeply satisfying read for anyone who appreciates the history of everyday things.