A great many varieties of fish are used as foods to which it is necessary to allude in general terms only. Salted fish is not a suitable article of food for the sick: it is difficult of digestion, and possesses but slight nutritive value. Fresh fish, however, properly cooked, is, as a rule, easy of digestion, and furnishes a pabulum of a valuable kind in diseases of certain textures. The following is the composition of fish as compared with beef, according to the analysis of Fr. Schulze:

The commonly-received opinion, that fish is a more highly-phosphorated food than beef, does not receive support in this analysis. White-fish, shad, bass, and fresh mackerel, are more suitable for the sick than cod, salmon, or eels. They should be prepared and eaten as soon as possible after being taken from the water, and should be either broiled or boiled. Only at the time of the ripening of the milt and roe are fish in a suitable condition for the dietary of invalids. At the time of spawning, and immediately after, the flesh of fish is watery and semi-gelatinous.

Oysters rank among the most digestible of foods, and are usually easily borne by the most delicate stomach. According to Fonssagrives the French oyster contains about 12·6 parts of solid matters, consisting of osmazome, chlorides of sodium and magnesium, sulphates of lime and magnesia, fibrin, albumen, and gelatin. They are more easily and quickly digested when eaten raw, or broiled, but stewed is the most common form for use in disease. In cases of great irritability of the stomach, the most easily borne oyster-soup is prepared by the addition of the liquor to boiling milk.