
IN RELATION TO DIET, ' 601 
These results I would wish to have considered merely as I have proposed in 
introducing them, viz., as approximate ones. Some of them may not be perfectly 
correct, owing to circumstances of a vitiating kind, especially the time of keeping. 
Thus, in the case of the whiting, which was brought from Chester, its specific 
gravity, and its proportion of solid matter may be given a little too high, owing to 
some loss of moisture before the trials on it were made. Casting the eye over the 
first table, it will be seen that the range of nutritive power, as denoted by the 
specific gravity, and the proportion of solid matter, is pretty equable, except in a 
very few instances, and chiefly those of the salmon and mackerel. The one ex- 
hibiting a high specific gravity, with a large proportion of solid matter; the other, 
a low specific gravity, with a still larger proportion of matter, viz., muscle and 
oil, and, in consequence of the latter, the inferior specific gravity. A portion of 
the mackerel, I may remark, merely by drying and pressure between folds of blot- 
ting paper, lost 15°52 per cent. of oil. Oil also abounded in the sea-trout and eel, 
and hence the large amount of residue they afforded. 
Comparing seriatim the first table with the second, the degree of difference 
of nutritive power of those articles standing highest in each, appears to be incon- 
siderable, and not great in the majority of the others, exclusive of the liquids,— 
hardly in accordance with popular and long received notions. 
2. Of the Peculiar Qualities of Fish, as Articles of Diet. 
I am not prepared to enter into any minute detail on this important subject, 
from want of sufficient data. 
That fish generally are easy of digestion, excepting such as have oil inter- 
fused in their muscular tissue, appears to be commonly admitted, as the result of 
experience,—a, result that agrees well with the greater degree of softness of their 
muscular fibre, comparing it with that either of birds or of the mammalia, such 
as are used for food. 
A more interesting consideration is, whether fish, as a diet, is more conducive 
to health than the flesh of the animals just mentioned, and especially to the pre- 
vention of scrofulous and tubercular disease. 
From such information as I have been able to collect, I am disposed to think 
that they are. It is well known that fishermen and their families, living princi- 
pally on fish, are commonly healthy, and may I not say above the average; and 
I think it is pretty certain, that they are less subject to the diseases referred to 
than any other class, without exception. At Plymouth, at the Public Dispensary, 
a good opportunity is afforded of arriving at some positive conclusion—some exact 
knowledge of the comparative prevalency of these diseases in the several classes 
of the community. The able physician of that institution, my friend, Dr Coox- 
WorTHY, at my request, has had the goodness to consult its records, and from a 
communication with which he has favoured me, it appears that of 654 cases of 
