OYSTERS AND DISEASE. 



I.— INTRODUCTION. 



This research was commenced three years ago, and has been carried on inter- 

 mittently in the intervals of other work. One of us (W. A. H.) had been working for 

 some years previously at Fishery questions for the Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Committee, 

 and so had become cognisant of the methods of growing and bedding Oysters on our 

 coasts, of their variations in condition and colour, and of the want of exact knowledge 

 as to their connection with disease. As this was clearly a matter of combined Natural 

 History and Bacteriology, he proposed to his colleague (R. B.) that they should under- 

 take a joint investigation of the structure and life-conditions of the Oyster in healthy 

 and unhealthy environments — a matter of importance both for the Oyster industries 

 and for public health. 



A preliminary paper on the plan of work and on the first experiments was laid 

 before Section D. (Zoology and Physiology) at the Ipswich meeting of the British 

 Association (September, 1895). This led to the formation of a small Committee to 

 carry on the work, with the help of a grant of .£40 ; and interim reports were sub- 

 mitted at the Liverpool (1896) and Toronto (1897) meetings. The final report of that 

 Committee was given to the British Association at Bristol last autumn. 



In these reports, necessarily brief and without illustrations, it has only been 

 possible to give a summary of results ; and, in the summer of 1897, one section of the 

 subject — the presence of copper in the leucocytes of certain Oysters — was treated by us 

 in a preliminary manner in a short communication to the Royal Society.* We propose 

 now to give a full account of the evidence upon which our various conclusions, some 

 of which were announced in these preliminary reports, are based, along with a discussion 

 of our results and those of other workers, both from the purely scientific and also from 

 the Fisheries and the Sanitary points of view. 



One member of our British Association Committee, Dr. Charles Kohn, Lecturer 

 in Chemistry at University College, Liverpool, has given us considerable help from time 

 to time in discussing with us the chemical aspects of the work, and in making analyses 

 of different kinds of Oysters. We have also had the advantage of advice from our 



* Proc. R. S., vol. LXI!., No. 379, p. 30. 



