CHAPTER XIX 

 THE PROBLEM OF PAIN IN FISHES 



Do fish feel pain ? This is not an easy question to answer. For 

 obvious reasons we can have no real knowledge of a fish's feelings 

 or sensations, and there is only the answer obtained by analogy, 

 b}^ anatomy, and by the reactions of fish to certain stimuli or their 

 behaviour. I suppose we all instinctively recoil when we see a 

 fisherman skin a sole alive, and shudder at the living shambles in 

 the fish-markets of many Continental countries, and most of us 

 prefer to knock a caught fish on the head rather than allow it to 

 prolong its death agonies by flapping on the floor of the boat. But 

 we cannot estimate the pain or sufferings of a fish by its facial 

 expression as it has no facial muscles, and though certain fish, as the 

 gurnard, grunt when taken out of the sea we cannot say whether 

 these sounds indicate pain or discomfort. 



There is often some confusion of thought when we use the term 

 cold-blooded ; the original meaning of cold-blooded is having cold 

 blood, and is used in relation to those vertebrates whose body 

 temperature varies with that of the water in wliich they live ; but 

 it is also used in a figurative sense as lacking in sensibihty of feeling, 

 and thus the conclusion is reached, quite unjustifiably, that a fish 

 is devoid of feeling. Some light can be throA\Ti on the question if 

 we approach the subject from an anatomical standpoint. 



An analysis has been made in man of cutaneous sensibihty by 

 certain scientists, who have allowed themselves to become their 

 own laboratory animals, and have stuched the various sensory 

 functioas, and their recovery after experimental division of their 

 cutaneous nerves. Accorchng to some, all forms of cutaneous 

 sensibility, touch, temperature and pain, are grouped in two series, 

 one, kno^^'n as protopathic sensibility, subserves general diffuse 

 sensibility of a primitive form. The sense organs are arranged in 

 definite spots, yet the spot stimulated cannot be accurately localised. 

 There are separate spots for touch, heat and cold, and be it noted 

 " pain spots." The other series knowTi as epicritic sensibility is 

 more discriminatory and is probably of a later evolutionary origin. 



We need not discuss the latter further as pain sensibility is not 



149 



