The Sodium Habit of Mankind


The Sodium Habit of Mankind. I HAVE briefly touched upon meat as a rational diet for man- a carnivorous animal. 1. have pointed out that the. chemical combinations prese…


I HAVE briefly touched upon meat as a rational diet for man- a carnivorous animal. 1. have pointed out that the. chemical combinations present in the flesh of the healthy animal when taken as food by man cannot upset or derange his own normal chemistry, because the chemistry of the ingested and the ingestor are the same, provided they are allowed to remain the same before the animal flesh is ingested. But this is not so and probably never will be so-man will never again eat raw animal flesh. Man-more especially civilized mankind-cooks, preserves and impregnates animal flesh with the chemicals. He does the same with the vast majority of multifarious articles which he ingests to provide’ his blood soil with the chemistry upon which the tissues of his body are dependent for their normal functioning.

The blood of man is a complex chemical structure, and any marked deviations from its combinations ends in loss of vitality and death. To a degree the blood contains its own chemical protectives against chemical agents which would destroy its normal chemistry, and in doing so destroy the body itself as a vital machine. The body’s protection with which the child, when born, is provided, is that of the mother’s blood-if this is deficient the child also is deficient. Its growth, its life, starts right or wrong.

What is the body’s natural chemical protection? What destroys this? What maintains it? And what, when deficient, will rejuvenate it?.

I was once attacked in a medical lecture which I gave, by a Professor of Medicine, for trying to teach my medical audience what they already knew. My retort was: “If you know these things why not apply them. One can forgive ignorance in its dealings with suffering humanity but one cannot forgive disregard of proven truths, called knowledge.” I may be again accused by those who read these truths and also, some may be amused by my persistent likening of the human machine and the man made motor. I have found, however, that the latter descriptions clear up in the minds of my audience and readers points which even medical men may not always see clearly-many men today know more about motor cars than about their own bodies. Many say that man is not a motor car because he has a mind with its emotions. The man without a mind is dead-the motor car without man’s mind is also dead. Man’s mechanical body is a material thing and can only be influenced materially. Man may have fear, worry, pleasure-but these names for his mental emotions can only influence his material body by their action on his, chemistry because he is a complicated mass of chemical agents. What man’s mind- his thoughts, his emotions-does to his complicated material chemical structure, it can only do by derangements of his chemistry. The emotions of the mind of a motor car driver can be seen in the material progress of the mechanical machine he is driving. The same applies to the mechanical body actuated to certain actions by the mind.

The body and the motor engine have a degree of power within limits, depending on their structure, the fuel with which they are provided and the opposition or work they have to overcome. The motor car has a bumper bar or buffer to protect or safeguard its body. When this is destroyed-rapidly or slowly as the case may be, by forces small or great, dependent on the strength of the protection-any further effect strikes the body itself.

For many years medical science has recognized that there are chemical protectives-material chemical buffers in the body fluids. These are the acid ‘protective or buffer acid-radicals of free chlorine, free phosphorus, and free carbon dioxide. All these buffers are volatile-all become gases when the fluids containing them in solution are exposed to the air, and this is accentuated when heat is applied. The fact of the essential presence in the blood serum of these so-called protective acid-radicals has been proven knowledge to medical science for decades.

I will ask my readers questions and at the same time answer them. What is the origin and for what protective purpose are these buffer or protective acid- radicals of free chlorine, phosphorus, and carbon dioxide present in the blood and tissue fluids? Medical science has recognized their presence for decades their protective purpose has also been recognized, their volatile nature under certain circumstances is an indisputable fact. What can an acid chemical radical protect against? There is only one thing which by combination it can render innocuous, and that is a caustic alkaline. Free phosphorus combines chemically with any mineral caustic to form the innocuous mineral phosphates-a product neither caustic nor acid.

Therefore we have in the human body the recognized presence of free acid protective radicals of phosphorus, chlorine, and carbon dioxide. Their chemical protection lies in their power of combination with caustic mineral hydrates to form the innocuous phosphates, chlorides and carbonates. We have here their protective purpose, we have the method of their protection and against what? It only remains to establish clearly why their protection is of vital importance to the body and what dangers in the shape of systemic and local pathologies must occur in the body when this buffer acid protection is deficient, deranged or completely destroyed.

When the child is born the buffer acid protection which it inherits is that which is contained in the blood stream which it has shared with its mother. If the mother’s blood is deficient, the child inherits its deficiency. This fact of inherited deficient protection is of grave importance as will be seen later. The results of the mother’s deficiency of chemical buffer acid resistance may not be reached until she has reached well on in her life’s productive span, but her child begins life already deficient in the essential protection. The mother may not be diseased or destroyed by the pathologies which must inevitably eventuate from the continuance of her deficiency of the protection against what has made its presence a necessity, but the child starting life with deficiency must soon gather the pathological fruits of its inheritance.

The only safeguard is knowledge and its application, founded on scientific irrefutable facts.

The fuel or food of civilized mankind-the source of the chemistry of his fluid blood soil and the vitality of his organs and tissues is chemically corrupted- when animal flesh is cooked the volatile free acid-radicals of phosphorus, chlorine, and carbon dioxide, which have been the protectives in the living animal, are driven off. Where can man’s body obtain these essentials except from his food? Civilized mankind makes sure that his buffer protectives cannot enter his body. He destroys his protection before it enters his body and then, also as a religious rite, he pours salt on what he does ingest. Vegetables, bread, butter, cakes, preserved foods-a multitude of multifarious articles, composing a large percentage of the dietary of civilized mankind-the source from which he attempts to maintain the normal vital chemistry of his blood-the liquid soil of his tissues-its protective volatile acid-radicals removed by cooking from the ‘healthy chemistry of animal flesh-the chemistry which has kept the living animal in health fit for human consumption-is completely upset. There is not one chemical only in the flesh of animals and the blood of man. There are at least twenty-five-maintained in proper proportion if health is to be maintained. But civilized mankind assiduously sets out to produce chemical unbalance in himself by preserving, cooking and impregnating a large proportion of his food with sodium compounds: Common salt (sodium chloride, pure or adulterated), bicarbonate of soda, sodium sulphite,(for preserving meat), borax (sodium borate), sodium sulphate, sodium salicylate, and proprietary salts recommended for constipation, etc. When one considers the thousands of tons of these sodium salts used in all civilized communities throughout the world today, one cannot expect anything else but what is obvious on every hand-more and more medical men, dentists, hospitals, invalids, ever increasing mortality and crippling from failure of heart function, rheumatism, cystic and fibroid pathologies, etc., but most tragic and alarming of all in its burning hopelessness-the scourge of cancer.

Edward Henty Smalpage
Edward Henty Smalpage (1895-1962), was an Australian doctor. He netered medical school at Sydney at age 16. He went into Military service after that. After leaving services on medical grounds (epilepsy), he cleared FRCS from England in 1921. In 1940 he published the book Cancer, it's Cause, Prevention and Cure.