246 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
opened and flattened out, under the name of Conger douce. 
If ground down into powder they help to enrich soups by 
being admixed therewith, especially mock-turtle soup, according 
to Frank Buckland. Also the Conger Eel is cooked in a pie. 
Because of sometimes containing a special toxin, this Eel will 
occasionally induce a choleraic attack. ‘“ Though the fresh-water 
Eel, when dressed,” writes Izaak Walton, “ be excellent good, 
yet it is certain that physicians account it dangerous meat.” 
“* Kels,” says Paulus Jovius (Burton), “he abhorreth in all 
places, and at all times ; every physician detests them, especially 
about the solstice.” The Eel’s blood contains a highly poisonous 
principle which asserts its dangerous properties if injected into 
the human blood, but which becomes inert under the process 
of digestion when Eels are taken as food. For Alice (in Wonder- 
land) an old Conger Eel was the “ drawling master, who came 
once a week to teach drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils.” 
The skin of an Eel is employed by negroes as a remedy against 
rheumatism. Formerly our sailors, when they wore pigtails 
of the hair behind the head, encased the same for protection, 
and neatness, in an Eel skin. Again, a “ salt Eel” was formerly 
an Eel skin prepared for use as a whip. Pepys relates in his 
Diary (April 24, 1663): “ Up betimes, and with my Salt Eele 
went down in the parlor, and there got my boy, and did beat 
him until I was faine to take breath two or three times.” The 
skin of an Eel is hard, tough, and dark of colour, with an oily 
fat just underneath ; it can be pulled off like a stocking after 
first cutting a circular incision round the Eel’s neck. Robert 
Lovell (1661) protested that mud-begotten Eels “fill the body 
with many diseases; they are worst in summer, but never 
wholesome.” And a curious old ballad tells the same story as 
having befallen “ the croodlin’? doo” :— 
“O, whaur ha’e ye been a’ the day, 
My little wee croodlin doo ? 
O I’ve been at my grandmither’s: 
Mak’ my bed, mammie, noo! 
“O what gat ye at your grandmither’s, 
My little wee croodlin doo ? 
I got a bonnie wee fishie : 
Mak’ my bed, mammie, noo! 
“ O whaur did she catch the fishie, 
My little wee croodlin doo ? 
She catched it in the gutter hole : 
Mak’ my bed, mammie, noo! 
