FISH AND PHYSICIANS. 277 



their patients shall assimilate their remedies by the 

 most natural process that is, as food. Everything in- 

 duces us to follow this rational procedure ; and in creat- 

 ing a taste for Venus verrucosa, and multiplying it, we 

 provide at once an agreeable aliment, and a fresh and 

 salutary medicament." 



This lauded mollusc, he also states, is rather smaller 

 than an oyster, which it does not resemble, being white, 

 fat, and of unequalled flavour. 



In case any of our readers shall fancy that fish diet 

 may incapacitate them for laborious exertion, we add 

 the following observations of Mr Yarrell : " Two phy- 

 sicians of great experience, at the west end of London, 

 find their advantage in taking fish only at dinner, 

 almost daily. A surgeon, in extensive practice at the 

 West End, tells me that whenever he foresees he shall 

 have a hard day's work, and be obliged to go out in 

 the evening, he arranges for an early dinner of fish, and 

 finds that he gets through a hard day with much more 

 ease to himself than if he had taken a heavy dinner of 

 meat. A case of local inflammation, which resisted all 

 the usual means, gave way entirely after persevering in 

 a fish diet for nine weeks, and wholly abstaining from 

 meat." 



Upon the whole, therefore, we trust that our readers 

 will agree that our articles on Pisciculture are of im- 

 portance, because directing attention to the domain of 

 the waters, from which the fishermen of the British 

 Islands draw an amount of human food equal to little 

 less than a million of money a sum capable of indefi- 

 nite enlargement, if those interested in fisheries will 

 only combine to protect them from the ruinous effects of 

 ignorance and shortsighted cupidity. 



Oyster and mussel culture open up a new field of 

 most profitable industry, which, we trust, wilt not long 

 be left unoccupied. The interests of the public economy, 

 as well as of large sections of our maritime communi- 

 ties, are so deeply implicated in our carrying out the 



