Note 1025 — Chapter XXXIX · FISH WITH AND WITHOUT SCALES—METHODS OF FISHING—VIVARIA

The classification, if unscientific and incorrect—e.g. Eels possess rudimentary scales—had as its practical purpose the elimination of the Siluridæ—i.e. the Catfish Clarias, Bagrus, Synodontis, etc.—which even if, as with the Catfish, pleasant to the taste were very unwholesome, causing diarrhœa, rashes, etc. Doctors inform me that even in our day Jews who eat crustaceæ, especially lobsters, are far more liable to these diseases than Christians—presumably from an abstention of centuries. The ban on Eels from their infrequency in Palestine was almost superfluous, but on the Clarias, which abounds in and near the sea of Tiberias, very practical. The abstention, whether originating from supposed reasons of health or from some obscure tabu, was and still is prevalent in Asia, Africa, and South America. A curious trace of it at Rome is discoverable in Numa’s ordinance that in sacrificial offerings no scaleless fish, and no scarus should figure (Pliny, N. H., XXXII. 10). The abstention is sometimes merely partial, as with the Karayás in the Amazon valley, see W. A. Cook, op. cit., p. 96.