of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



227 



perfectly healthy, but who are obliged by their employment to lead more 

 or less sedentary lives, and for old people who, having passed their period 

 of greatest activity, are no longer able to work off any superfluous 

 nutriment they may have absorbed by muscular exercise, and are therefore 

 liable to periodical attacks of gout or biliousness as their excretory 

 organs become over burdened. The most notable advocate of this view is 

 Sir Henry Thompson,* who strongly advises all such people to use a much 

 lighter dietary than is common at present, and for this purpose nothing 

 can be better than one in which fish bulks largely. It is to be regretted, 

 nevertheless, that Sir Henry Thompson should be so absorbed in regarding 

 the advantages of a fish diet for those who lead sedentary lives and whose 

 work is chiefly mental, that he cannot see the advantage of it for those who 

 have to do severe manual labour. He refers to 1 the obvious and admitted 

 ' value of a highly nitrogenous food, of which meat is a concentrated form, 

 ' to the labouring man,' and regrets that this should have led to the 

 popular creed — 4 If you wish to be strong eat plenty of meat.' But, as 

 I have shown above, so far as present analysis goes, fish is nearly as highly 

 nitrogenous and concentrated a form of, nourishment as meat, and so far 

 as its chemical composition goes it ought to support a man doing hard 

 labour nearly as well as beef. 



Sir Henry Thompson has drawn attention to the great waste which re- 

 sults from our ordinary methods of preparing fish. The bones, skin, and 

 internal parts of all fish form a very considerable proportion of the whole 

 weight. This proportion may be as high as one-half in such fish as 

 flounders and soles. These fish are generally prepared by filleting. The 

 head, skin, bones, and internal parts, that is one half of the fish, are 

 all removed and thrown away as useless. All this ' waste ' may be used 

 for making a stock, which will form the basis of many admirable 

 soups. 



It must be admitted, however, that fish is less satisfying than butcher 

 meat. Hunger returns sooner after a fish dinner than after one of which 

 beef or mutton has formed the piece de resistance, and a larger amount of 

 fish has to be consumed in consequence. The cause of this probably lies 

 in the fact that fish is more digestible than beef, that the stomach is there- 

 fore sooner emptied after a fish dinner than after a meat dinner, and that 

 in consequence it begins to crave sooner for a fresh supply. The best 

 answer to all attempts to show that a fish diet is incapable of supporting 

 a man during severe manual labour lies in the fact that fishermen, who 

 work as hard probably as any other class of the community, live almost 

 entirely on fish, and yet are ever well nourished and ready for their work. 

 As Dr Davey* long ago remarked, 'If we give our attention to classed 

 ' people — classed as to the quality of food they principally subsist on — 

 ' we shall find that the ichthyophagous class are especially strong, healthy 

 ' and prolific. In no other class than in that of fishers do we see larg&r 

 ' families, handsomer women, or more robust and active men.' 



* Food and Feeding, by Sir Henry Thompson, Fourth Edition, London, 1885. 

 t The Angler and his Friend, by John Davey, M.D., F.R.S., Lond. 1855, p. 117. 



