330 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



OBSERVATIONS. 



Upwards of thirty years experience and observation at the chief fishing stations 

 at home and abroad have convinced me that at too many of these food centers there 

 is an increasing indifference to putrefactive tilth. The avoidable but scandalously 

 dirty condition of our British fish trade may again at any moment form a suitable 

 •' home " for the propagation and distribution of the bacteria of infectious fevers and 

 diseases generally. Thus this preventable survival of the " fittest " filth, gives the 

 bacteria of cholera., the plague, typhoid, etc., chances of infecting the public. Of course 

 avoidable filth tends to preserve the specific agents — special bacteria and their pro- 

 ducts — which produce and propagate these hideous but preventable diseases. 



The veterau scientist, Prof. Virchow, when sent as a young man to investigate 

 an epidemic outbreak, then suggested as a cure municipal reform, with free action. 



Prof. Koch, when recently reporting on the German cholera epidemic, considered 

 it caused by contagion carried in a foul-water supply, which we know also introduced 

 epidemic typhoid at Worthing, Arundel, etc., in 1893. 



Cleanliness versus cholera and other filth diseases becomes more imperatively 

 necessary as population and consequent overcrowding increases in all our large 

 towns. Dirt, debility, disease, and death too often form a connected chain, in many 

 cases alike avoidable and preventable by superior and scrupulous sanitation. 



CONDEMNED MEAT, FISH, ETC., TENDERS. 



The corporation of London again seeks ten ders from " persons desirous of utilizing 

 for manurial purposes the meat, poultry, game, offal, refuse, etc. (besides separate 

 contracts for condemned 'fish,' its offal and refuse), condemned in the city of Lon- 

 don as unfit for human food." 



Now, presuming that at the hands of the corporation the condemned meat, etc.,] 

 is first subjected to a thorough treatment with disinfectants, what use can such dis- 

 infected material be for manurial purposes? 



The disinfectant is as injurious to the seeds and roots as it is to the bacteria of 

 putrefaction and disease, including parasites and their eggs. 



But it is unwise and unsafe to assume that the disinfection is complete. It is 

 therefore a grave responsibility for the corporation to allow putrefactive animal matter 

 and infected carcasses to be transported for miles in carts, especially through the nar- * 

 row streets of its densely crowded colossal city. 



Further, there is the danger of allowing partially disinfected material to be util- 

 ized as manure. Such a process only tends to spread infection widecast over fields, 

 and possibly to infect, by parasitic and other diseases, the green food destined for 

 man and for animals supplying his special food. 



I have proved that the 1893 outbreak of epidemic cholera in the United Kingdom 

 was due chiefly to the avoidable filth of the "fish" and its offal trades as carried ou 

 at Hull, Grimsby, etc. (By " fish" I mean aquatic and amphibian animals and their 

 products used as man's food.) Bad "fish " caused epidemic cholera in St. Petersburg 

 during December, 1893. 



Again, the corporation sanctions the use of condemned food for manufacturing 

 purposes. Of course it would be monstrous to imagine that diseased meat would be 

 worked up into articles of diet, sausages, etc., or retailed for food to the poor. But 



