276 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
Speaking broadly, the substance of Fish served at table is thought 
to be lighter of digestion, but less nourishing, than the flesh 
which we eat as beef, mutton, lamb, veal, and pork. It is 
credited with the faculty of imparting phosphorus to the brain, 
and to the nervous organization; it is further believed to be a 
sexual stimulant, and restorative, but its exclusive protracted 
use is thought to engender outbreaks of skin disease. Some 
persons also find Fish, as a food instead of meat, to be a nervine 
calmative, and to exercise soporific effects. Moreover, the oily 
fish, such as salmon, mackerel, cod’s-liver, herrings, and sprats, 
when adequately digested, promote fatty development, and 
bodily warmth. Fish roe is reputed to be a rich source of 
organic phosphorus; and bone materials, such as phosphates 
of lime, potash, and soda, are contributed by various fish. 
Count Romford concluded that of all foods a red herring has 
the highest specific sapidity; that is, the greatest amount of 
flavour in a given weight of insipid food with which it is inter- 
mixed. Again, a Connecticut Professor in the State Agricultural 
College found when investigating the comparative values as 
food, of meat, and other matters of daily sustenance, that the 
climax of nutrition is reached in the eminently popular Red 
Herring. Alphonse Karr tells amusingly in his Tour round my 
Garden of a midnight mass at Lille, where some old women were 
praying, and preparing a supper called a “‘ reveillon”; ‘‘ from 
time to time they drew from under their petticoats a small 
chafing dish, upon which were cooking two or three herrings ; 
they turned the herrings, put the chafing dish back in its place. 
and resumed their prayers.” The bloater is so called because 
partially smoke-dried (d/oat, an obsolete term to smoke) after 
some salting, and is not split open. The fat under the skin of 
a herring is never of good taste, and is best extracted by broiling. 
Kippered, or smoked, herrings are frequently dipped instead 
into pyroligneous acid, which gives them the smoky flavour. 
But they furnish,” says Dr. Haig, “ more than 6 per cent of 
gouty uric acid.” About the year 1600 Robert Greene, the Play- 
wright, fell a victim to a surfeit of pickled herrings, and Rhenish 
wine, at some merry gathering of his associates. A “ Yarmouth 
Capon”? (or fowl), is a bloater, and says old Fuller, “‘ Few Capons 
save what have more fins than feathers are bred in Yarmouth.” 
Irish herrings are frequently smoked with juniper wood. Father 
_ Prout was loud in their praise :— 
