I used to suffer from the effects of hypertension from time to time, but it became particularly bad when I changed my diet in line with prevailing opinions about the dangers of salt.

Fortunately, I was seeing an excellent American physician, Dr Lisa Sand, at the time. She had already got me taking supplementary iron, which Dr Gaier recommends, as I was anaemic, but it made no difference to the dizzy spells.

However, when I mentioned them to Dr Sand, she had a simple solution which she used with all her patients. She gave me a mirror, and I could see I didn’t look too wonderful. Then she gave me a salty drink - a stock cube made up with water.

Within 10 minutes, my face had changed, and looked bright and open-eyed, while I felt I had woken up strong and ready to face the world!

I still supplement with salt each time I feel faint 25 years later and, following her advice, still use salt to get rid of cramps in the night.

Dr Sand benefited in her training from the simple practical remedies of the old-time doctors, now mostly forgotten in the welter of science and technology and pharmaceuticals that have overwhelmed medicine today. - Mary Russell, Surrey