DOCTOR SALT
In the early days of medicine, salt sprinkled on an open wound, though painful, acted as an antiseptic and helped the wound to heal. Today, when a patient cannot eat, he can be kept alive by the injection of nutrients suspended in a salt solution, which are assimilated directly to the blood-stream. Also a serious injured man can often be kept alive, until whole blood is available, by the transfusion of a saline solution.

One of the greatest successes of preventive medicine was achieved with the help of salt. By 1934, medical researchers had traced the disease of goitre and other malfunctions of the thyroid to a lack of iodine in the system. The salt producers were asked to add a compound of iodine to their table salt, in a ratio of one part to ten thousand. Today, endemic goitre has been virtually eliminated, as a result of iodized salt. Modern medicine has adapted sodium, made radioactive by the cyclotron, to the treatment of cancer patients. And radioactive salts, injected into the bloodstream are used as a tracer in medical research.