that certain tribes of negroes who cannot obtain salt, add to their vegetable food wood ashes or a preparation of wood ashes; this is chiefly potash.  One preparation used in British Central Africa was found to contain about 21 per cent. of potassium chloride to only 0.5 per cent. of sodium chloride.  It has been said that vegetarians consume more salt than those who take flesh food.  We doubt this; we know of many vegetarians who have a strong objection to added salt, and have abstained from it for years.  Some find that it predisposes to colds, causes skin irritation and other symptoms.  At many vegetarian restaurants the food is exceedingly salty; the writer on this account cannot partake of their savoury dishes, except with displeasure.  Nearly all who patronise these restaurants are accustomed to flesh foods, and it is their taste which has to be catered for.  Flesh, and particularly blood, which of course, is in flesh, contains a considerable quantity of sodium chloride; and most flesh eaters are also in the habit of using the salt cellar.  These people are accustomed to a stimulating diet, and have not a proper appreciation of the mildly flavoured unseasoned vegetable foods.  Only those who have, for a time, discontinued the use of added salt, and lost any craving for it, can know how pleasant vegetables can be; even those vegetables which before were thought to be nearly tasteless, unless seasoned, are found to have very distinct flavours.  It is then perceived, that there is a much greater variety in such foods than was previously imagined.  It is commonly urged that salt and other condiments are necessary to make food palatable and to stimulate the digestive functions.  We, on the contrary, say that condiments are the cause of much over-eating; and that if food cannot be eaten without them, it is a sign of disorganisation of the digestive system, and it is better to abstain from food until the appearance of a natural and healthy appetite.  An excess of salt creates thirst and means more work for the kidneys in separating it from the blood prior to its expulsion.  Even should it be admitted, that certain vegetables contain too little sodium salts, a very little salt added to such food would be sufficient; there is no excuse for the general use of it, and in such a great variety of foods.  It is thought that some cases of inflammation of the kidneys originate in excessive salt eating; certain it is that patients suffering from the disease very soon improve, on being placed on a dietary free from added salt and also poor in naturally contained sodium and potassium salts.  It is also possible to cause the swelling of the legs (oedema), to which such invalids are subject, to disappear and reappear at will, by withdrawing and afterwards resuming salt-containing foods.  The quantity of one-third of an ounce, added to the usual diet, has after a continuation of several days, produced oedema.  In one patient, on a diet of nearly two pounds of potatoes, with flesh, but without added salt,