98 
SEWAGE AND SHELL-FISH. 
By W. A. Herpman. 
The first ‘ Laneashire Sea-Fisheries Memoir” 
(Oysters and Disease), by Prof. Boyce and myself in 1899, 
drew attention to the serious amount of sewage contamina- 
tion in certain samples of shell-fish. Since then much 
additional evidence has been obtained, both in our own 
district and also from other parts of the coast, that, as the 
result of the discharge of unpurified sewage into tidal 
waters, extensive pollution of the shell-fish beds and of the 
waters generally of our coastal fisheries takes place— 
causing serious injury to health, and affecting the 
prosperity of the fishing industries. It has now been 
established, and is generally admitted, that shell-fish 
contaminated by sewage may produce enteric fever and 
other illness in human beings. 
Mr. Dawson and I, in the evidence we gave before the 
Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, both discussed 
cases of serious contamination of shell-fish beds in our 
district. Since then, however, Mr. Dawson has made a 
special survey of the mussel beds, and has drawn up a 
report which, with his permission, I insert here in order 
that it may be placed on permanent record. This report 
was submitted to the Lancashire and Western Sea- 
Fisheries Committee last November, and has since been 
made public, 
