The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

314

CONDIMENTS.

more useful, while the larger the quantity the more injurious. The only rule, therefore, for the use of it is to
use as little as will give to food a relish; and the amount
necessary for that depends very much on habit, except in
regard to that which is found in plants and the flesh of
animals. Salt is an inorganic substance, and the only
one demanded and extensively used as a condiment, and
the only one so universally and so abundantly furnished;
and this fact alone would indicate its importance in the
animal economy; but some nations of men, and some
animals in every nation, do not require salt; and to
some, as the birds, it is a poison, in quite small quantities; and this fact, on the other hand, would indicate
that it is not, like the nutritive elements, necessary for
the support of animal life.
Other condiments are from the vegetable kingdom,
and mostly from tropical climates; and, from the very
narrow range of temperature to which the most aromatic
are limited, we may infer that they were now intended
for universal use; but each probably possesses some
medicinal quality adapted to some peculiarity of the
diseases of its own locality.
The cinnamon is said to be indigenous only to the
Island of Ceylon, and even there is confined to a small
district in the south-western part of that island.
The clove is a native of the Molucca Islands, and the
nutmeg of the same islands. Ginger is a native of the
south-east coast of Asia and the adjacent islands. The
pimento or allspice grows spontaneously in Jamaica,
and one writer says, "it is purely a child of Nature,