188 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
material is nearly all protein. That is to say, fish supply the 
nutrient that is at once the most important and the most costly 
of all. 
DIGESTIBILITY OF FISH. 
Regarding the ease and rapidity of the digestion of fish, the 
experimental evidence 1s as yet insufiterent for exact. cone um 
sions. The investigations thus far made upon the constitution 
of the ingredients of the flesh, as well as those upon artificial 
digestion, indicate no great difference between the fish and the 
leaner meats, as lean beef, and imply that both would be very 
readily digested. The actual amounts of nutritive ingredients 
digested from fish can be only told by actual experiment. The 
only attempts to test this question, of which I am aware, were 
made in connection with the investigation the results of which I 
am alluding to, and are very few innumber. It wasmy fortune 
sometime since to spend some months in Munich, Germany, 
where through the kindness of Prof. Voit, I was enabled to 
make some experiments in the physiological laboratory of the 
university in that city. The proportions of the nutrients di- 
gested were tested in a series of experiments with a healthy 
man and witha dog. The man digested some 95-97 per cent. 
of the protein of the fish, and nearly the same proportion from 
meat (lean beef). That is to say, the digestion of the protein of 
both meat and fish was nearly complete. The experiments with 
the dog also gave essentially the same results with both kinds 
of food. In brief, the experimental facts at hand do not {indi- 
cate any decided difference in digestibility between fish and the 
leaner meats. Both belong to the more readily and completely 
digestible foods. 
To get a fully satisfactory knowledge of the digestibility and 
nutritive values of fish compared with other foods, it will be 
necessary to make detailed studies of the nature of the chemical 
compounds contained. in them. During a late residencesm 
Heidelberg, I was enabled through the courtesy of Prof. Kuhne, 
who kindly gave me all needed opportunities in his laboratory, 
to commence some studies in this direction. Though far from 
complete, they indicate a very great similarity in the constitu- 
ents of the flesh of fish and mammals used for food. 
