FISH AND FAST DAYS 357 



tion of the sacred fish with Christian ornament, derived 

 from a lingering pagan reverence for the mysterious 

 silvery inhabitants of deep pools, great rivers, and the 

 sea. It is to such survivals of the now dim rituals and 

 celebrations of ancient days that we owe the joyful holly 

 and the mystic mistletoe, still happily preserved in our 

 festivities at Christmas and New Year. 



The use of fish as a regular article of diet is very 

 widely spread. Fresh fish is considered by medical men 

 to be more easily digested than the flesh of beasts or 

 Jsirds, and a healthy substitute for the latter. Almost 

 everywhere where fish are eaten, the practice of drying, 

 and often of salting, fish, so as to store them for con- 

 sumption after an abundant " catch," has grown up, and 

 with it a great liking for the flavours produced by the 

 special chemical changes in the fish arising from salting 

 and drying. Ordinary putrefaction produces very 

 powerful poisons in the flesh of fish. They are known 

 as " ptomaines," and are produced in the flesh of fish 

 more readily that in that of other animals. But the 

 process of drying in the sun or of salting and smoking 

 the fish averts the formation of these poisons. It seems, 

 however, that a diet of dried fish is responsible for a 

 certain kind of poisoning in man, which renders him 

 liable to the attack of the terrible bacillus of leprosy. 

 The leprosy bacillus must get into the body by an 

 abrasion or crack in the skin, through contact with a 

 person already infected. It is known that the lack of 

 fresh vegetable and animal food produces the ulcerated 

 unhealthy condition called " scurvy," and a " scorbutic " 

 state of the body seems to be favourable to the establish- 

 ment in it of the leprosy bacillus. The substitution of 

 fresh meat and vegetables as a diet in place of dried 

 fish and salted meat has apparently been one of the 



