Transactions. 75 



vegetation and morbid growth of the animal tissues, such as Ti?iea 

 favosa," and various others he names. Then he goes on to say 

 " that it is a disputed point whether the morbid condition or the 

 fungus is the disease," but closes by saying that the first or morbid 

 condition l)eing the disease is rather consistent with general 

 analogy, and especially with what is known of the conditions 

 under which the various kinds of fungoid " bUghts" develop them- 

 selves in or upon living plants. When speaking of potato and 

 vine disease, he says " that the fungus on those plants will not 

 grow on those which are perfectly healthy, but that a disor- 

 dered condition is necessary as a ]>redisposing cause. Again, if 

 you refer to those excellent papers presented to the Society to-night 

 by Mr Stirling, he gives a long account of some very interesting 

 experiments (p. 247) where he placed fish or parts of fish covered 

 with S. ferax in water along with healthy fish, and the healthy 

 fish were not contaminated by the fungoid disease, although the 

 germs of that disease must have been in the water in thousands. 

 There are various other parts in those papers I would have liked to 

 have noticed as proving my theory, but I have lent my copies to 

 a friend and cannot remember the parts. Those experiments I 

 have alluded to clearly prove that, unless there is a predisposing 

 cause, fish will not contract the fungoid part of the disease ; they 

 must have a disease or decay in their body on the products of 

 which the fungus germinates and grows. In fact, it is contrary 

 to anything I have either read or know for fungus to grow on 

 either healthy animal or vegetable. As far as I have been able 

 to decide by a number of experiments, I am rather inclined to 

 believe that salt water is not very favourable to the growth of 

 S. ferax ; but as far as the Bacteria in the muscle are concerned, 

 no washing by any solution will afi'ect them. I have cut sections 

 of muscle containing them, and placed one in a saturated solution 

 of salt and one in clean water, and kept them for several days. 

 Those in the salt solution w«re as lively at the end of the period 

 as when taken from the fish ; in fact, they did not die until they 

 were placed in a preservative fluirl containing arsenic. If this 

 disease is cured by the return of fish to the sea, it must be ascribed 

 to the food they get there and the general invigorating influences, and 

 not to the fact of their being washed externally by sea or salt water 

 As to how diseased fish are to be cured in the rivers I cannot even 

 concoct a theory ; but I have no faith in putting salt, acetic acid, 

 or any other chemical in the water, as I believe by the time that 



