316 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



where the drainage and sanitation were defective. His grandson, H. R. H. the Duke 

 of Clarence, is reported to have died from eating oysters which bad been contaminated 

 by having lived in sewage-fed waters. 



WOUNDS CAUSED BY HANDLING FISH. 



These are often serious owing chiefly to an accidental dose of putrefactive matter 

 getting into the sore, producing local whitlow or cellulitis, abscess, necrosis, loss of 

 finger, or even fatal gangrene. The average fisherman has never any remedies at hand 

 at sea, unless it be a quid of tobacco to put on the wound. 



Surgeons attached to the Mission to the Deep Sea Fishermen have noticed that, in 

 spite of the usual health of these fishermen, wounds heal but slowly at sea. Whilst 

 cleaning fish slight abrasions, punctures, and cuts from knives soon inflame, causing 

 deep suppuration and great suffering. The poisoned wounds of such fisherman are 

 generally irritated by salt water, which soaks through their bandages. 



Their putrefactive surroundings from decaying " fish" seem to suggest that the 

 putrefactive bacteria and products connected with the decomposition of " fish " may 

 account for the slowness with which fishermen recover from sea boils, salt-water 

 cracks, and local injuries from the skin having been cut or torn. 



These injuries resemble the course of " wound fevers " in armies during war, etc. 



I have quoted these instances to suggest a more intimate relationship between 

 the effects of the prick or wound and the resulting inflammation than has hitherto 

 been supposed, and that these cases may point to a direct inoculation of putrefactive 

 virus contained in foul " fishy " surroundings. 



During October, 1892, at a coroner's inquest upon a fish porter, it was shown by 

 Dr. Rolf, of the London Hospital, that death was due to the rapid cellulitis and 

 gangrene which followed from the prick of a fish bone. 



In the British Medical Journal of July 0, 1889, I called attention to the case of a 

 woman, described by Dr. Buckell, where the patient pricked her tongue with a fish 

 bone, and then was said to have inoculated the wound with vaccine virus, owing to 

 her having kissed her baby's vaccine vesicle. Now, in this case the inflammation of the 

 tongue might just as well have been due to the poison of the wound by the fish bone. 



Again, rectal abscess in man is often due to a fish bone penetrating the local 

 mucous membrane. Goodsall describes eighteen cases, and there are numerous others 

 mentioned by writers at home and abroad. 



In these examples, in like manner, inflammation may be due to wound-poisoning 

 caused by the bone, and not to the mere mechanical irritation excited by the foreign 

 body, and the necessary contamination of the wound with the local excreta. 



In some parts of the United States their oyster "fishermen" or dredgers, owing 

 to being wounded by the shell of the oyster and the putrefactive poison derived from 

 the decomposed "fish," get on their hands one or more large abscesses, usually situ- 

 ated beneath their nail or nails. This affection is described as a huge "felon," or a 

 kind of general paronychia or whitlow of the hands. The bones and tendons are often 

 exposed, with possible loss of one or more fingers. The usual American treatment 

 is deep and free lancing and improvement of the general health and surroundings of 

 the patient. 



Old hands having long manufactured dry mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, horn, 

 ivory, bone, etc., are liable to impeded breathing, shortness of breath, or cough, prob- 





