REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 39 



over the fishes after they are planted and the neglect of certain 

 States to make provision for their protection. Yellowstone Park, 

 being under federal jurisdiction, offers an exceptional opportunity 

 to demonstrate the possibilities of fish culture under rational and 

 consistent regulations. 



The Bureau also recommends the establishment of one marine and 

 one additional fresh-water hatchery on the Pacific coast, and an addi- 

 tional station in Texas for the supply of a demand for fish in the 

 Southwest which it is at present impossible to satisfy. 



LABORATORY FOR THE STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 



There is again urged the importance of a station for the study of 

 fish diseases and experiments in the interests of fish culture. In some 

 of the hatcheries of the Bureau and in similar establishments under 

 state and private auspices certain fish diseases have become so preva- 

 lent as to make it a matter of grave consideration whether the propa- 

 gation of certain species, especially the trouts, should not be aban- 

 doned. It frequently occurs that the fish and fry are decimated by 

 epidemics for which there are no known remedies, in consequence of 

 which there are annually entailed on fish culture large wastes of time 

 and money. In addition to the financial loss, embarrassment arises 

 at times in filling legitimate demands for fish for restocking depleted 

 waters, and the effect on the morale of the employees of the Bureau 

 who have to struggle hopelessly against an obscure disease is not 

 unworthy of consideration. The gravest phase of the matter, how- 

 ever, is the possible relationship of some of these diseases to more or 

 less kindred affections occurring in human beings. It, has been deter- 

 mined that a type of cancerous affection is of widespread distribution 

 among domesticated trout and their offspring planted in the streams. 

 Whether this disease has a causal relation to cancer in human beings, 

 or whether the two are to be even traced to the same source, is a mat- 

 ter of doubt, but the annually increasing mortality from cancer in 

 man and certain remarkable coincidences in the geographical dis- 

 tribution of the disease in man and fish render it imperative that it 

 should be made the subject of minute inquiry. The matter therefore 

 has not only economic but humanitarian aspects, and the considera- 

 tion of the serious character of the latter prompted the President to 

 submit to Congress on April 0, 1910, a special message advocating an 

 appropriation of $50,000 for the construction and equipment of a 

 laboratory adequate to enable the Bureau to discharge its plain obli- 

 gations. The Bureau in the meantime is proceeding in the investiga- 

 tion to the limit of its powers, but it may be stated emphatically 

 that it can make but little progress without the special facilities 

 asked for. 



