Every animal on the planet requires some amount of salt to stay alive. Birds and mammals in the wild aggregate at natural mineral deposits. Known as salt licks, it’s here that they ingest the sodium and chloride minerals essential for their survival.

Livestock too, requires access to salt blocks; also infused with cobalt and iodine. Without salt, cattle, sheep, and goats cannot synthesise vitamin B12; greatly affecting their intermediary metabolism, thermoregulation, and reproductive development.

Salt is not only crucial to human existence, its vital role extends a 5,000-year sodium chloride odyssey. It’s a pivotal and permanent player in the drama of modern human history.

Throughout the world, this chemical compound has profoundly affected the geography of entire countries, and intricately influenced the lives of millions.

It was the first commodity used as currency, the first international trade product, and it stopped food from spoiling. Salt is the primary source of sodium and chloride ions that are essential for nerve and muscle function. Sodium also regulates fluids in the body; and it influences blood viscosity and pressure.

With the inclusion of asparagus, green beans, cucumber, squash, eggplant and garlic, there are just over a dozen vegetables that are naturally sodium-free. All other vegetables, to a varying degree, contain salt; along with meats, seafoods and dairy products – all useful foods in the maintenance of good oral health.

Salt may seem so ordinary, so innocuous and so plentiful today, but among other events, it named much of Britain, carved sinuous paths through the North American landscape, and gave rise to civil disobedience.

In his 1930 protest of the British salt monopoly in India, Mahatma Gandhi and seventy-eight of his followers set out to reach the coastal salt pan of Dandi – a march of 387 kilometres over 24 days. When he filled his pockets with salt in symbolic defiance of the rule of the British Crown, the British-led police force brutalised the by then, thousands of peaceful protestors who participated.

A month later on 5 May, 1930 Gandhi was arrested along with 60,000 of his supporters.

There was a global outcry in support of Gandhi’s cause. Eventually, it lead to the collapse of British colonial rule. His non-violent resistance to unjust laws was the political protest that later galvanised Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights movement. The prominent American activist and political philosopher was only 14 months old when Gandhi’s Salt March took place.

Curiously, the high-powered rifle assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr took place just two days before the 38th anniversary of the end of the march – 4 April, 1968. He was 39. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi too, had been assassinated by bullet; twenty years earlier, and at 79 years of age.

Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Vinayak Godse, was 39 when he was hanged in 1949. James Earl Ray, who fired the fatal shot that ended MLK’s life at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, was 39 at the time of the crime.

If there’s any significance to the number 39, at least in terms of Hebrew mythology, it may be better understood by the relationship it has to the number 40: the number of infinity.

In religious writings, 40 years wandering the desert, 40 days of fasting, or 40 days and 40 nights of rain, all designate an incredible length of time. Jesus is said to have been lashed 39 times and close to death, before being crucified.

These are contexts that have the number 39 as the subtend from finite, to infinite.

Salty? Maybe. An element of ritual? Largely, yes. Many nontemporal, secular and holistic practices worldwide, represent purification, preservation and the eternal essence of life, with salt. It signifies the binding of a spiritual covenant. Sprinkled during ceremonies, salt is believed to absorb impurities, and form a protective barrier against negative energies and malevolent spirits.

No wonder it’s good for gum health.

For a variety of reasons, some salts are more favoured than others.

Himalayan salt, recognised by its pink hue and revered for its rich mineral content, along with its benefits as a mouth rinse, is believed to also purify the environment and balance energy. It’s what has increased the popularity of Himalayan salt lamps over the last few decades.

Aside from the pleasantly warm and soothing glow they emit, and despite a lack of scientific evidence, advocates claim ions neutralise negative energies. It’s reported that mood is uplifted, stress is reduced, and indoor air quality is improved.

A salt water rinse made with distilled water can help balance oral pH levels. This creates a less hospitable environment for harmful bacteria. Salt water can help alleviate the pain of toothache, fight off infection, reduce gum inflammation and promote soft tissue healing.

Commonly, the rinse consists of dissolving approximately half a teaspoon of salt in one cup of warm water.

Some suggest a mixture of bicarb soda and Himalayan salt as an alternative to toothpaste.

Because of the many trace minerals of this salt – including fluoride – it can assist in remineralising tooth enamel, and also prevent acid attacks. It’s what makes it a useful aid in minimising the risk of cavities, and the instance of bad breath.

Any salt other than table salt can be used as a rinse; particularly Celtic, or Dead Sea salt – prized for its detoxifying effects, and its abundant levels of magnesium, calcium, and potassium.

Adding to the oral health benefits of incorporating a salt rinse into your dental hygiene routine, is its ability to soothe any mouth ulcers, reduce plaque and tartar build-up, and help lighten stains and discolouration.

Salt is a fascination, and a connection. It is the ancient and the modern. It is myth; it is fact. Separately, the compounds sodium and chloride are both hazardous and volatile. When electrical force holds these two ions together, what it forms is essential to life.

“The cure for anything is salt: sweat, tears or the sea.” Karen Blixen (1885-1962).

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