280 FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, MEDICINE 
less digestible, very nutritious, but upsetting to the internal 
economy.” 
Alexander Aphrodisiensis attributes the superiority of 
Class A to the fact that, as the water round the rocks is in per- 
petual motion, its denizens continuously exercise themselves.! 
Galen, for a somewhat similar reason, appraises as the lowest 
in nutriment the inhabitants of marshes, lakes, and muddy 
waters, because of their lack of swimming exercise and their 
impure food. 
A further subdivision commends itself to Rhazes. All 
fishes rough of scale, mucilaginous and white-coloured are 
best ; those of a black and red shade must be avoided.2 A 
special distimguo extends to the part of fish, as Xenocrates 
plumps for the tails, on account of their being most exercised ! 
Bonsuetus, centuries after Galen, echoes him: - 
“ All fish that standing pools and lakes frequent 
Do ever yield bad juyce and nourishment.” ? 
But however divided the ancient practitioners were in their 
estimate of the digestibility of a fish diet, or of particular fishes, 
in their ichthyic remedies internal or external they credulously 
and enthusiastically coincided. Hence rained piscine pre- 
scriptions in every form, fresh, salt, cooked, calcined: every 
part and tissue, flesh, bones, skin, trail, brains, gills, viscera, 
and teeth—each and all were regarded as specifics against 
some human disease or infirmity.* 
All ailments practically find a cure in the ichthyic panaceas 
or nostrums which render old medical tomes boresome from 
repetition, and yet at times diverting. In regular prescrip- 
tions and old wife recipes alike, fish play a prominent part. 
Have you been bitten by a mad dog, and need a theriac ? 
Dioscorides’ recommendation,’ as amplified by Pliny, is 
1 Questiones Medice et Problemata Physica. 
2 Blakey, op. ctt., 73. 
> Cf. Burton, op. cit., 1, 97, whose trs. is given above. 
4 The belief in fish as curatives of not only human but also animal ailments 
still lingers. In this very year, 1920, we read in The Field, Aug. 14, of a 
Ross-shire crofter begging for a live trout to push down the throat of a cow, 
that had just calved but was suffering from hemorrhage. In consequence, 
or in spite of the trout, the cow recovered. 
§ De Materia Medica, II. 33; I. 181, ed. (Kiihn). 
