“This is a subject on which I have made some experiments, the results
of which go far to prove that there is much nourishment in fish――little
less than in butcher’s meat, weight for weight; and in effect it may be
more nourishing, considering how, from its softer fibre, fish is more
easily digested. Moreover, there is I find, in fish――in sea-fish――a
substance which does not exist in the flesh of land animals, viz.
iodine, a substance which may have a beneficial effect on the health,
and tend to prevent the production of scrofulous and tubercular
disease――the latter in the form of pulmonary consumption, one of the
most cruel and fatal with which civilised society, and the highly
educated and refined are afflicted. Comparative trials prove that,
in the majority of fish the proportion of solid matter――that is, the
matter which remains after perfect desication or the expulsion of
the aqueous part, is little inferior to that of the several kinds of
butcher’s meat, game, or poultry. And if we give our attention to
classes of people, classed as to the quality of food they principally
subsist on, we find that the ichthyophagous class are especially
strong, healthy, and prolific. In no other class than that of fishers
do we see larger families, handsomer women, or more robust men, or a
greater exemption from the maladies just alluded to.”――_Dr. Davy._