It is essential for the correct application of the salt-free diet to possess a knowledge of the chloride contents of the more common food-stuffs. Chlorides are present in beef-tea in very large quantities, but raw meat contains only an average of 80 centigrams per kilo (5 grains to the pound), and even this may be completely separated from it by boiling. Freshwater fish contain only half the quantity to be found in raw meat, but salt-water fish are naturally rich in chlorine-In milk 1.85 grams per kilo (12 grains to the pint) of common salt are present, and in butter from 1 to 14 grams to each kilogram. There is none at all in sugar, only traces in cocoa and chocolate, while fruits and most pure carbohydrate foods contain very little, rice and potatoes particularly only possessing 2 centigrams per kilogram. The pulses and vegetables contain half as much as milk, and eggs weighing about 50 grams (about 2 ounces) contain only one-eighth of a gram or about 2 grains.

Each case of epilepsy must be treated on its merits, and various modifications of the diet have to be recommended. Milk, butter, fruit, eggs, and bread salted with NaBr, to which may be added vegetables, minced meat, and ordinary butcher's meat when a distaste is developed for this regime, is a favourite diet list with some medical men. Others again prefer an entirely vegetarian menu. Chalmers Watson gives the following sample of a salt-free dietary: -

Breakfast

Porridge and cream, flavoured with syrup or sugar, cup of tea with plenty of milk, toast or roll specially prepared, and butter.

Lunch

Eggs or prairie oysters, or egg-flip, or sweet custard or roast chicken, with toast or roll as above, potato or tomato. Any farinaceous milk pudding, or jelly or cream.

Afternoon Tea

Cup of tea with wafer of toast or sponge biscuit.

Dinner

On the same lines as lunch; chicken not to be taken oftener than once a day.

It is unwise to continue the dechlorinated diet for too long a period, as nutrition must ultimately be interfered with, and in some cases aggravation of the malady arises.

A dechlorinated diet is useful, if not imperative, in interstitial nephritis, dropsy from heart disease, hepatic disease, tubercular peritonitis, pleurisy, eczema, phlegmasia, glaucoma, hyper-chlorhydria, hay fever, coryza. Unless the salt supply be limited to .6 gram chlorine, equal to 1 gram of sodium chloride, such a diet does not always secure hypochlorination of the body, because local causes may be too powerful, so that it is always wise to supplement it by diuretics, e.g., theocin-sodium-acetate with digitalis and purgatives, diaphoretics, and even local puncture. It is often useful to alternate a saltless diet with a milk diet, and it is judicious to weigh the patient regularly and see that other condiments, such as pepper, mustard, and vinegar, are not substituted. One must be careful in prescribing a diet such as this to insure that correct methods of cooking are employed, and that no salt be added in the kitchen. Meat may be eaten raw or roasted with fresh butter, or boiled and seasoned with a very little vinegar, or a little nitrate of soda may be added at the table. Potatoes may be baked and eaten with fresh butter or made into a puree with fresh butter. Boiled potatoes may be substituted for some of the bread usually eaten. Cheese should always be prepared fresh.