The opinion that salt is harmful and strains the heart and the kidneys is widely spread. Folk medicine recommends a diet without salt if you have heart and kidney failure and if you have a disease of the liver.
Why then ancient Greeks sucked small pieces of sea salt after meals?
Doctors think that the human body can receive the necessary quantity of salt only from fruit, vegetables and bread. At the same time, to people with hypertension they recommend one tea spoonful of sea lettuce (laminaria or kelp) after meals. One litre of milk contains 4 g of sodium chloride; potatoes contain almost the same quantity. Doctors say that healthy kidneys must release 25 g of salt for 24 hours.
We take from 12 to 15 g of salt (sodium chloride) with food per day. The Russian academician, Boris Vassilievich Bolotov, a very well known scientist, chemist, physicist and biologist, recommended putting 1 g of salt on the tongue and swallowing the saliva after a few seconds an hour after meals. He also said that we should put a little salt on vegetables, fruits, cottage cheese and butter but never add oil to them as oil causes bile secreting. Bile slows down the transformation of slag (waste products into soluble salts which are excreted from the body together with urine and excrement). Some herbs help the removal of salts from the body as they act as solvents. For example, tea from knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare), watermelon peel and sunflower roots is suitable for alkaline salts. You can use the juice of black radish, horseradish, chicory (Cichorium intybis), and coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), and parsley roots to dissolve the mineral salts which precipitate on the blood vessels, the renal pelvises, the gallbladder and the bladder.
The formation of salts in the body is increased by the failure of the pylorus or pyloric part, which connects the stomach to the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine immediately beyond the stomach). In this case stomach ferments get in contact with the ferments of the duodenum and this leads to gastritis or inflammatory bowel disease.
Salt as a remedy
The Russian academician B.V.Bolotov claimed that sea water is extremely useful for the skin. He also recommended rubbing a mixture of cod-liver oil and meal of fish scales into the body an hour before you bathe in the sea; this, he said, is an effective way to cure dermatosis (skin rashes). Salty lard is also suitable for this purpose.
It is very good after a sauna to put honey on your body and to add a little salt to the honey. It will make your skin smooth and elastic.
Inhalations with sodium chloride protect the lungs from allergies. The kidneys and the pancreas need salt to produce hormones. In the past Chinese scientists used salt to treat ill kidneys.
From ancient times this very useful mineral has been a symbol of friendship, eternity and wisdom. Sodium chloride plays a very important role in the process of metabolism.
DeForest Clinton Jarvis (March 15, 1881 – August 18, 1966) was an American physician from Vermont. He is best known for his writings on the subject of folk medicine. He recommended a mixture of whole, raw apple cider vinegar and honey that have variously been called switchel or honegar, as a health tonic. He defined potassium as the most important element in building cells. Academician Bolotov claimed that salt is the main solvent of old useless cells; they must timely be excreted from the body so that they do not clog the canals. If you do not take the necessary quantity of salt, the electrolyte balance in your body is impaired.
In his two books Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health (1958) and Arthritis and Folk Medicine (1960) Dr Jarvis wrote: “Potassium enters into the composition of cells and draws the liquid in the cell. Sodium excretes the liquid from the intercellular space. The main sources of potassium are paprika (you can add it to all salads), honey, fresh fruits and vegetables. The best source of sodium is the most common salt. To be healthy means to have a balance between potassium and sodium in your body. Deficit of salt leads to disturbances in the gastrointestinal, nervous and excretory systems.”
As academician Bolotov wrote, ancient Greeks sucked grains of sea salt after meals. Sea salt causes release of pepsins and pepsins improve digestion and help the degradation of old deficient cells. If you take one gram of salt after meals for six months, the number of young cells in your body will grow and the wrinkles on your face will disappear. Salt has been used as a remedy since ancient times.
Here are some simple and effective recipes.
If you have diarrhoea, prepare saturated brine and drink one table spoonful in the morning on empty stomach and after that, for 24 hours do not take any liquids or food. You can heat some salt and put it on your belly as a warmer.
You can get rid of constipation with salty water. Put one pinch of salt in a glass of cold water and drink it on an empty stomach. You can replace water with milk. You can also combine water and milk: one tea spoonful of salt in two-thirds of water and one third of milk. Drink every two hours until there is a result of your effort and you have no more constipation.
Salty water can help you if you have snuffles. Gargle with the water. If you have allergy, use the salty water to lave your nose.
Your teeth with be stronger and whiter if every morning you rub them with a mixture of salt and ashes. This procedure strengthens the gums as well.
In order to treat hair loss and dry eczema wash your hair, rub salt in it and rinse after 15 to 20 minutes. Repeat the procedure every day till you get a result. .
If you have pains in the joints, use a mixture of salt and honey (or vodka) and massage the tender spots.
If you have dysentery, it is good to make sitting hot baths. 100 g of salt are enough for 5 l of water.
Scrofulous children (scrofulosis is a kind of tubercular infection in children who are prone to rheum, bronchitis, eye inflammations and eczema) should be bathed in salty water at least two or three times a week. Children who suffer from nettle-rash should have a salty bath first and then you should rub them with menthol oil or tomato slices.
Compresses with salt and vinegar are suitable if you have bruises or sprains, or headache.
After meals you can rinse your mouth with salt and baking soda in a ration 1:1.
If your third gland is atrophied, you should gargle with salty water and drink cod-liver oil. Inhalations with brine are extremely useful if you have bronchitis.
Intestinal worms are extremely unpleasant. Take half a glass of water and put one table spoonful of salt in it. Drink it on an empty stomach in order to soothe the stomach. Enemas with salty water will remove itching.
If you have problems with slowly healing wounds, dermatologists recommend putting a cotton cloth bandage saturated in a hot brine on them and to keep it as long as possible on the tender spots without changing.
If you have a tooth extracted, and the wound continues to bleed, put a piece of cotton saturated in brine on the spot.
In order to spit phlegm drink half a cup of warm water with salt and baking soda dissolved in it two times a day on empty stomach. You can use the same solution if you have aphthae (small ulcers) in your mouth. First gargle then chews a fresh cabbage leaf.
Add salt to soft clay and mix well. Keep the mixture in a nylon bag in the fridge. Use as a cold compress if you have sprains, stretched tendons and radiculitis. Repeat the procedure several times every 30 minutes. This compress is effective if your nose is bleeding or if you have insomnia due to emotional stress. In that case you should put the compress on your forehead.
If you have headache, you can use another compress, with vodka and a little salt. It is also effective if you have diarrhoea. Drink half a glass before going to bed.
You can use salty compresses to calm your nervous system, to cleanse your body and to cure inflammations. For example, if a finger or toe suppurates, it is enough to dip it in a hot salty or baking soda solution for three or four times and then put chilly sauce on it.
Salty baths cleanse the body very well. Take them for ten to fifteen minutes for 21 days. The temperature should be up to 37-39 degrees Centigrade.
Compresses made from vegetables or vegetable peels and salt pull out the slag from the body, restore nerve cells damaged by the salts accumulated in the capillaries and the tissues and cure haematomas. It is best to use cabbage leaves, horseradish and plantain (Plantago maior) leaves, potatoes, apples, and carrots.
Nature has taken care of animals, too. When they run, they sweat and lose salt. It crystallizes under their fur and later pulls out the slag from their bodies.
If you are bitten by a dog or a cat, take a hot salty bath. It will help you avoid suppuration.
If you are scalded with hot water, immediately sprinkle salt on the tender spots and put a wet cloth over them. If you burned yourself with an iron, wet the spot with a saturated solution of potassium permanganate.
