Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 14, Number 43, DeMotte, Jasper County, 8 September 1944 — Criminals Given Choice Of No Salt or Hanging [ARTICLE]

Criminals Given Choice Of No Salt or Hanging

None of us can live without salt. Perspiration resulting in loss of salt from the human body makes men liable to muscular cramps. Several years ago a doctor and three medical students deliberately deprived themselves of all salt. Strange symptoms soon resulted. Appetite was lost, food seemed tasteless, cigarettes lost their flavor, cramps in the muscles developed, and all suffered from excessive fatigue and a general sense of exhaustion. At one time one of the legal punishments in Holland was to deprive a man of his salt. It led to depression and illness. Condemned criminals in Sweden were once allowed, if they wished, to abstain from salt for a month instead of mounting the scaffold. The result was practically a certain death.