FISH DIET, AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE 

 HUMAN CONSTITUTION. 



TURNING to the article " Aliments " in the ' Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia/ we read : " From a comparison of their 

 respective qualities and organisation, we might have 

 concluded that fish would, in equal weight, afford a less 

 nourishing aliment than flesh, and of more difficult di- 

 gestion and assimilation. Experience comes in sup- 

 port of this conclusion. The Eoman Catholics who, 

 during the forty days of Lent, rigorously abstain from 

 the use of flesh, but indulge freely in a fish diet, are 

 said to be less nourished by it, and to become sensibly 

 thinner, as Haller indeed tells us he had himself expe- 

 rienced. The general practice of using higher season- 

 ings and sauces with fish, and the custom so common 

 in our own country of taking a dram after this kind of 

 food, show plainly enough what is the general experi- 

 ence of mankind with regard to the alimentary proper- 

 ties of fish." 



We demur as to the logic of the Encyclopaedist. 

 Because some people use horse-radish along with roast- 

 beef, we humbly think that this is not satisfactory evi- 

 dence as to the innutritions qualities of beef, or as to 

 its being of difficult digestion. And because, in Scot- 

 land, fish is facetiously known as "the Latin for a dram," 

 we are not prepared to jump to the conclusion that, in 



