p. 10 | The Delicious Bivalve

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

The Delicious Bivalve.

The oyster is probably eaten to a greater extent than any other shell-fish. It used to be considered especially wholesome, or at least easy of digestion. But it is a notable fact that it is peculiarly subject to disease, and to the spread of disease. For instance, that great authority, the Medical Record of New York, thus begins an article: “There have been, of course, numerous cases of typhoid fever which have been directly traced to the consumption of infected oysters. The fatalities at Winchester, England, a short time ago, following the eating of contaminated oysters, was a notable case in question, and has drawn the attention of medical men everywhere, and especially of bacteriologists, to the matter.” In the London Lancet of December 6, 1902, another outbreak in Essex, England, is noted. Frequently oysters feed and thrive on the sewage of cities, at the river mouths, or on the offal of the sea. Because of these things, and, doubtless, also from the very nature of shell-fish, the Lord gave this instruction concerning them: “And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination

unto you: they shall be even an abomination unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” We can not conceive that the nature of the creatures has been so changed since as to render them anything other than an abomination still.