Here’s a riddle. There was a product in the seventeenth century that was universally considered a necessity as important as grain and fuel. Controlling the source of this product was one of the first priorities for many a military campaign, and sometimes even a motivation for starting a war. Improvements to the preparation and uses of this product would have increased population size and would have had a general and noticeable impact on people’s living standards. And this product underwent dramatic changes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming an obsession for many inventors and industrialists, while seemingly not featuring in many estimates of historical economic output or growth at all.
Very, very good! The contours of European states as a web of salt arbitrage is really cool.
The mechanics of sweat are backwards: the body heats up, dumps heat by turning water into water vapor in the lungs and expels it, runs low on water, then emits salty sweat to compensate.
The physics are: a calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise 1ml of water 1 degree celcius. From -1 C to 0 C of ice is 1 calorie. From 0 C ice to 0 C water is 80 calories. Eighty. From 0 C water to 100 C water is (roughly) 100 calories. From 100 C water to 100 C steam is 540 calories. Five hundred and forty. So, turning water into steam inside the lungs is a very effective technique for dumping heat! And conversely, when steam hits your flesh a little of it condenses and dumps a lot of thermal units in all directions but partially into your flesh, which is why steam burns hurt so much.
Thanks! Love the framing of "web of salt arbitrage" - might use that when recapping in Part II. One of those things you don't quite see when you're in the weeds and writing it up.
Thanks for the correction. Looking into it, I think I've worked out where the mistake crept in: I had read in that source that the body "attempts to adjust this by accelerating its secretion of water, so that the blood's salt concentration can be maintained at the vital level. The result is a gradual desiccation of the body and finally death". But looking into this, it's a secretion specifically from the blood stream, but into *other* parts of the body - specifically the cells, causing all sorts of problems from swelling (hyponatremia) - rather than from the body, the mechanism for which I had simply assumed to be via sweat.
So I think I'll correct to: "The human body is constantly losing salt through sweat, and to a certain extent urine, but it tries to keep the blood’s salt concentrations maintained at a certain level. So as the blood loses salt, the body also ejects water from the bloodstream into other cells to adjust. Ironically, as you lose salt your body responds by drying your bloodstream out. Without constantly replacing the salt in your body — which is only ever stored for a couple of days at a time — you will at first feel fatigued and a little breathless, but increasingly weak and debilitated, as though sapped of all energy. The slightest exertion would start to bring on cramps, then problems with your heart, lungs, kidneys and brain, as your bloodstream continually shed water, dumping it into these organs and causing them to swell dangerously. If one of these organs failures didn't kill you — and they probably would — you would essentially die through desiccation."
RIght! I should have started with: "when healthy and a bit overheated, the lungs expel heat by..." . You are describing the unhealthy cycle.
Salt from the sea would be mostly SaCl and probably some potassium chloride. I suspect that a lot of inland salt mines are not plain sodium chloride, but a mix. There would be enough variation in inland sources that they would have slightly different flavors, and there would be exotic imports with different colors and flavors. People were incredibly bored (before radio/TV) and this kind of variation was fascinating to the middle & upper classes.
And some would have heavy metal contamination etc. that nobody knew about. Himalayan Pink Salt has a tiny leavening of uranium, for example.
You turned a humdrum topic into a fascinating story - had me hooked right from the start! Any author worth his salt can captivate a reader with tales of derring-do, but to do so with a pantry staple? Incredibly talented story telling!
I read Salt last year and thought it was incredibly interesting. My takeaway was that if you look at any specific commodity (or concept or philosophy) narrowly, you can convince people that it's the driving force behind the development of human history. I'm glad the author didn't try to make that case (as in Guns, Germs, and Steel for example), because a broader understanding of history shows many complex and overlapping forces leading to change.
Yes, I had this risk at the back of my mind throughout - it's always a risk to make it all about something particular. My strategy was to look at the proportions of state revenue that salt monopolies actually brought in, which seemed by far the most reliable indicator - and in doing so I gradually noticed the geographical pattern. Kurlansky's Salt is very good. Also great are older books, Neptune's Gift, and Salt & Civilisation.
Sorry to come so late to this. I worked in a salt operation (Lake Macleod) for 4 years, and it was an endlessly fascinating process. Love to read this type of history, and going to have to find Part II!
There's a salt mine not too far from where I live. A couple decades back they had a collapse that registered as a small earthquake. It took them a while to get back into production. Consequently, the driving was worse in the winter because the salt put down to keep the roads from getting too slippery was too expensive. Local town budgets for dealing with winter exploded. It was a serious problem.
This is of incomparable depth and insight, a highlight on the platform
Thank you, that’s most kind
Fascinating. I look forward to part 2.
I am going to put a 50ib bag of salt in my emergency supply kit as a tradegood.
I did some water fasts some years ago and salt is absolutely a necessity. One can function without food but not without salt.
Very, very good! The contours of European states as a web of salt arbitrage is really cool.
The mechanics of sweat are backwards: the body heats up, dumps heat by turning water into water vapor in the lungs and expels it, runs low on water, then emits salty sweat to compensate.
The physics are: a calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise 1ml of water 1 degree celcius. From -1 C to 0 C of ice is 1 calorie. From 0 C ice to 0 C water is 80 calories. Eighty. From 0 C water to 100 C water is (roughly) 100 calories. From 100 C water to 100 C steam is 540 calories. Five hundred and forty. So, turning water into steam inside the lungs is a very effective technique for dumping heat! And conversely, when steam hits your flesh a little of it condenses and dumps a lot of thermal units in all directions but partially into your flesh, which is why steam burns hurt so much.
Cheers!
Thanks! Love the framing of "web of salt arbitrage" - might use that when recapping in Part II. One of those things you don't quite see when you're in the weeds and writing it up.
Thanks for the correction. Looking into it, I think I've worked out where the mistake crept in: I had read in that source that the body "attempts to adjust this by accelerating its secretion of water, so that the blood's salt concentration can be maintained at the vital level. The result is a gradual desiccation of the body and finally death". But looking into this, it's a secretion specifically from the blood stream, but into *other* parts of the body - specifically the cells, causing all sorts of problems from swelling (hyponatremia) - rather than from the body, the mechanism for which I had simply assumed to be via sweat.
So I think I'll correct to: "The human body is constantly losing salt through sweat, and to a certain extent urine, but it tries to keep the blood’s salt concentrations maintained at a certain level. So as the blood loses salt, the body also ejects water from the bloodstream into other cells to adjust. Ironically, as you lose salt your body responds by drying your bloodstream out. Without constantly replacing the salt in your body — which is only ever stored for a couple of days at a time — you will at first feel fatigued and a little breathless, but increasingly weak and debilitated, as though sapped of all energy. The slightest exertion would start to bring on cramps, then problems with your heart, lungs, kidneys and brain, as your bloodstream continually shed water, dumping it into these organs and causing them to swell dangerously. If one of these organs failures didn't kill you — and they probably would — you would essentially die through desiccation."
RIght! I should have started with: "when healthy and a bit overheated, the lungs expel heat by..." . You are describing the unhealthy cycle.
Salt from the sea would be mostly SaCl and probably some potassium chloride. I suspect that a lot of inland salt mines are not plain sodium chloride, but a mix. There would be enough variation in inland sources that they would have slightly different flavors, and there would be exotic imports with different colors and flavors. People were incredibly bored (before radio/TV) and this kind of variation was fascinating to the middle & upper classes.
And some would have heavy metal contamination etc. that nobody knew about. Himalayan Pink Salt has a tiny leavening of uranium, for example.
Did you mean mean NaCl in seawater?
Yup, NaCl.
You turned a humdrum topic into a fascinating story - had me hooked right from the start! Any author worth his salt can captivate a reader with tales of derring-do, but to do so with a pantry staple? Incredibly talented story telling!
Thanks very much!
I read Salt last year and thought it was incredibly interesting. My takeaway was that if you look at any specific commodity (or concept or philosophy) narrowly, you can convince people that it's the driving force behind the development of human history. I'm glad the author didn't try to make that case (as in Guns, Germs, and Steel for example), because a broader understanding of history shows many complex and overlapping forces leading to change.
Yes, I had this risk at the back of my mind throughout - it's always a risk to make it all about something particular. My strategy was to look at the proportions of state revenue that salt monopolies actually brought in, which seemed by far the most reliable indicator - and in doing so I gradually noticed the geographical pattern. Kurlansky's Salt is very good. Also great are older books, Neptune's Gift, and Salt & Civilisation.
Sorry to come so late to this. I worked in a salt operation (Lake Macleod) for 4 years, and it was an endlessly fascinating process. Love to read this type of history, and going to have to find Part II!
There's a salt mine not too far from where I live. A couple decades back they had a collapse that registered as a small earthquake. It took them a while to get back into production. Consequently, the driving was worse in the winter because the salt put down to keep the roads from getting too slippery was too expensive. Local town budgets for dealing with winter exploded. It was a serious problem.