117.  Condiments.  The refinements of cookery as well as the craving of the appetite, demand many articles which cannot be classed strictly as foods.  They are called condiments, and as such may be used in moderation.  They give flavor and relish to food, excite appetite and promote digestion.  Condiments increase the pleasure of eating, and by their stimulating properties promote secretions of the digestive fluids and excite the muscular contractions of the alimentary canal.

The well-known condiments are salt, vinegar, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and various substances containing ethereal oils and aromatics.  Their excessive use is calculated to excite irritation and disorder of the digestive organs.

118.  Salt The most important and extensively used of the condiments is common salt.  It exists in all ordinary articles of diet, but in quantities not sufficient to meet the wants of the bodily tissues.  Hence it is added to many articles of food.  It improves their flavor, promotes certain digestive secretions, and meets the nutritive demands of the body.  The use of salt seems based upon an instinctive demand of the system for something necessary for the full performance of its functions.  Food without salt, however nutritious in other respects, is taken with reluctance and digested with difficulty.

Salt has always played an important and picturesque part in the history of dietetics.  Reference to its worth and necessity abounds in sacred and profane history.  In ancient times, salt was the first thing placed on the table and the last removed.  The place at the long table, above or below the salt, indicated rank.  It was everywhere the emblem of hospitality.  In parts of Africa it is so scarce that it is worth its weight in gold, and is actually used as money.  Torture was inflicted upon prisoners of state in olden times by limiting the food to water and bread, without salt.  So intense may this craving for salt become, that men have often risked their liberty and even their lives to obtain it.

119.  Water.  The most important natural beverage is pure water; in fact it is the only one required.  Man has, however, from the earliest times preferred and daily used a variety of artificial drinks, among which are tea, coffee, and cocoa.

All beverages except certain strong alcoholic liquors, consist almost entirely of water.  It is a large element of solid foods, and our bodies are made up to a great extent of water.  Everything taken into the circulating fluids of the body, or eliminated from them, is done through the agency of water.  As a solvent it is indispensable in all the activities of the body.

It has been estimated that an average-sized adult loses by means of the lungs, skin, and kidneys about eighty ounces of water every twenty-four hours.  To restore this loss about four pints must be taken daily.  About one pint of this is obtained from the food we eat, the remaining three pints being taken as drink.  One of the best ways of supplying water to the body is by drinking it in its pure state, when its solvent properties can be completely utilized.  The amount of water consumed depends largely upon the amount of work performed by the body, and upon the temperature.