ely used as a part of our general diet. It is
unsuitable to cold phlegmatic constitutions, but very well adapted to
such as are hot and choleric. The white kinds of fish, which contain
neither fat nor oil, are preferable to the rest; such as whitings,
turbot, soles, skate, haddock, flounders, smelts, trout, and graylings.
These are easier of digestion than salmon, mackarel, eels, lampreys,
herrings, or sprats, and therefore more wholesome. Shell-fish, such as
oysters, muscles, cockles, crabs, and lobsters, are very far from being
easy of digestion, and are particularly improper for invalids, though
too commonly imagined to be suitable in such cases. In general it may be
observed, that those kinds of fish which are well grown, nourish better
than the young and immature. Sea-fish are wholesomer than fresh-water
fish: they are of a hotter nature, not so moist, and more approaching to
flesh meat. Of all sea and river fish, those are the best which live in
rocky places. Next to these, in gravelly or sandy places, in sweet,
clear, running water, where there is nothing offensive. Those which live
in pools, muddy lakes, marshes, or stagnant water, are bad. Whether sea
or river fish, those are the best which are not too large, whose flesh
is not hard and dry, but crisp and tender; which taste and smell well,
and have many fins and scales. All fresh fish should be eaten hot, and
less in quantity than fresh meat. Fish should not be eaten very often,
and never after great labour and exercise, nor after eating other solid
food. Fish and milk are not proper to be eaten at the same meal, nor
should eggs be used with fish, except with salt fish, and that should be
well soaked in water before it is dressed. It may be eaten with carrots
or parsnips, instead of egg sauce. If salt fish be eaten too often, or
without this precaution, it produces gross humours and bad juices in the
body; occasions thirst, hoarseness, sharpness in the blood, and other
unfavourable symptoms. It is therefore a kind of food which should be
used very sparingly, and given only to persons of a strong constitution.
All kinds of salted and dried fish are innutricious and unwholesome, and
their injurious effects are often visible in the habits of seafaring
people. Even prawns and shrimps, if eaten too freely, are known to
produce surfeits, which end in St. Anthony's fire.--If proper attention
be paid to health, every kind of sustenance intended for the use of man,
must