Note 644 — PHARMACOLOGIA. (continued 7)

I have myself witnessed the bad effects of a diet of unsalted fish; and in my examination before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1818, appointed “for the purpose of inquiring into the laws respecting the Salt Duties,” I stated the great injury which the poorer classes in many districts sustained in their health, from an inability to procure this essential article. Lord Somerville (in his address to the Board of Agriculture) gave an interesting account of the effects of a punishment which formerly existed in Holland. “The ancient laws of the country ordained men to be kept on bread alone, UNMIXED WITH SALT, as the SEVEREST punishment that could be inflicted upon them in their moist climate; the effect was horrible: these wretched criminals are said to have been DEVOURED BY WORMS, engendered in their own stomachs.”

Salt was an object of taxation at a very early period in this country; Ancus Martius, 640 years before our era ‘Salinarum Vectigal instituit.’ This tribute was continued on the Britons when our Isle was possessed by the Romans, who worked the Droitwich Mines, and who made salt part of their soldiers Salarium, or salary. Hence the custom at the Eton Montem of asking for salt.

The great advantages which must ultimately accrue to this nation in its fisheries, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, from a late remission of the odious and impolitic tax upon salt, are incalculable. The government of France appears to have been as impolitic with regard to this tax as the English. Buonaparte abolished the collection of turnpike dues; and imposed a tax on salt, payable at the Salt-pans, in its stead. It is not perhaps generally known, that by the aid of this tax he was enabled to complete the grand entrance into Italy, over the Simplon; so that it may be fairly observed, that if Hannibal was enabled to cross the Alps by the aid of Vinegar—Buonaparte, by the assistance of Salt, succeeded in constructing a public road over the same mountains.