It is interesting to compare fish as food with meats and to see how they compare in percentage of proteids, particularly with our strong foods, such as roast beef and mutton. The average fish diet is surely not the light diet we unthinkingly are apt to take it to be; nevertheless fish is a safer and lighter diet than red meats and such, even if we take the stronger fish, like cod and salmon. Fish diet does not, as before noted, load the blood with as much waste as the heavy meats do, requiring the getting of more oxygen by exercise to eliminate it from the system. Thus, fish diet does not render the overfed man dull like heavy meats, nor is there any truth in the common belief that fish diet is the best brain-food, from the excess of phosphorus it contains. To show how much fish we use in the United States, the value of the yearly catch of commercial fisheries is about fifty millions of dollars. These include fresh-water fish and salt-water fish.

Fish to get the best results for food should be killed at once, and not allowed to die slowly. Take a shad. Immediately it has been netted it should be bled in the tail and killed thus at once. There is no comparison in the flavor of this fish and one allowed to die slowly. By the tables salmon is about the strongest fish in protein and fat. Its food value is 1025 calories per pound. Halibut probably comes next These are nearly as strong as beef. Mackerel is very strong and very fat. So are herrings. The roe of the shad and herring are very strong. Cod is very strong, but not very fat. Eels are very strong and quite fat. Carp, fresh-water bass, sea bass, butter fish, yellow perch, pickerel, pompano, smelts, shad, red snapper, sturgeon, white fish, weakfish, lake trout, brook trout, these are all strong food as fish go. Now, if we want to take the weaker of the fish as food, and thus keep down our nitrogen and fats in diet, we can eat the white perch, probably one of the very best of our pan fish. Again we can take the flounder; he is rather low diet, but very palatable if fresh from the salt water. The small-mouthed fresh-water bass is weaker as food than the large-mouthed bass. The striped bass or rock is not strong food as fish go, nor are the black fish. Hake is another fish not strong in nitrogen, etc., nor is the porgy. I spoke of shad as strong food. The shad is not so strong as many of the other fish in nitrogen, but is quite rich in fat. The torn cod of the Pacific coast is a fish we may eat and not get a very strong food, and so is the turbot. The general average of fresh fish as sold is water, 44; proteids, 10.5; fat, 2.5; mineral matter, 1. Total nutrients, 14. Fuel value per pound, 300 calories.

Now we come to the mollusks and the crustaceans, - the oysters, the clams, the scallops, the mussels, the lobsters, the crawfish, the crabs, and the shrimp. Here we have good food and not very strong food, food for the invalid, the gouty, and the rheumatic, so far as foods light in nitrogen and fats go.

The general average of the mollusks in food value is water, 34; proteids, 3.2; fat, .4; carbohydrates, 1.3; mineral matter, .9. Total nutrients, 5.8. Fuel value per pound, 100 calories. Crustaceans, water, 20.9; proteids, 4.3; fats, .4; carbohydrates, .2; mineral matter, .5. Total nutrients, 5.4. Fuel value per pound, 100 calories.

Here is good food, not very strong, and, as a rule, if fresh and sound, very digestible and very nutritious and very palatable. The oyster especially is valuable for all who need appetizing and acceptable food, and the eating of which will afford nourishment in every way satisfactory when the stronger foods will be out of place and do harm. The same may be said of clams in a lesser degree. The gouty man and the invalid may well say, Thank God for the oyster and the clam.

The oyster only holds in its solids 6.1 proteids, 1.4 fat, 3.3 carbohydrates, its liver being large, and .9 mineral matter. Total nutrients, 11.7. Fuel value per pound, 235 calories. Scallops are about double these in proteids, a little less in fat, about the same in carbohydrates, and a little higher in mineral matter and total nutrients, and 345 calories per pound in fuel value.

Long clams are lower in proteids than oysters, but the round clams are somewhat higher. About the same in fat and higher in carbohydrates, and in mineral matter. Round clams are quite low in fuel value.

Mussels are low in all. Lobster is low in proteids, low in fat, little carbohydrates as used, and low in mineral matter and fuel value. Crawfish are very weak food and low in all. Crabs are 7.3 pro-teids, .9 fat, .5 carbohydrates, 1.4 mineral matter. Total nutrients, 10.1, and 185 calories fuel value. Shrimps are stronger food, furnishing 370 calories per pound of the canned meat.

Altogether fish hold a high place as food for man, and with a little knowledge and discretion we can pick out a diet from among them for the athlete, for the day laborer, for the sedentary man, for the growing child, or the invalid. "Chacun a son gout," and each one as to his condition.

Most of this as to fish is mere repetition, having been gone over before, but it is of such great importance as to demand repetition and reiteration, in order that the prevailing fallacies of eating fish, like eating white meats, instead of red meats, when we want to reduce our proteid intake, may be laid bare. These fallacies must and should be refuted, for they are put forward not only by intelligent people, but by many physicians themselves who unwittingly and unthinkingly and ignorantly palm them off on their confiding patients.