CARCINOMA OF THE THYROID IN THE SALMONOID FISHES. 



By HARVEY R. GAYLORD, M. D., and MILLARD C. MARSH 



WITH THE COLLABORATION OP 



FREDERICK C. BUSCH, M. D., and BURTON T. SIMPSON, M. D. 



Introduction. 



HISTORY OF THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION. 



In 1907, by the natural trend of the general investigation into cancer which was 

 being conducted by the State of New York through the medium of the Gratwick Labo- 

 ratory, now a part of the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease, that 

 institution became interested in the possible distribution of cancer and allied affections 

 in fish. Through publications of Plehn and Pick the attention of cancer investigators 

 was attracted to a disease known as carcinoma of the thyroid in the Salmonidae. The 

 disease had been described in the literature under various names and was known to fish 

 culture as "gill disease," "throat tumor," etc. The work of Marianne Plehn had served 

 to establish the nature of the disease as cancer or carcinoma of the thyroid, intimately 

 associated with enlargement of that organ of a more simple nature which might be 

 considered goiter. 



In 1907 the director of the Gratwick Laboratory took occasion to visit one of the 

 hatcheries in New York for the purpose of inquiring into the prevalence of this disease 

 in the hatcheries of the State. He learned that one or two fish with tumors at the 

 junction of the gills had been found and in the spring of 1908 a report came from this 

 hatchery that an epidemic was in progress, and an examination made on the spot 

 revealed the presence of visible tumors in some 700 fish. Attempts were made to study 

 the conditions under which the disease developed in this hatchery, and observations 

 were carried through the summer of 1908. Attention was called to the existence of the 

 disease in two other hatcheries in the State of New York, and at the conclusion of the 

 summer's work it became apparent that the great extent of the disease, the existence 

 of which in other States had been reported to us, was such that a comprehensive inves- 

 tigation could probably be successfully accomplished only in cooperation with the 

 United States Bureau of Fisheries. 



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