66 American Fisheries Society 



There was not any "sore throat"' among the young fish in 

 the troughs last spring, and I never saw a healthier looking 

 lot of trout in any fish hatchery. 



DISCUSSION 



Prof. L. L. Dyche, Pratt. Kan.: What part of the throat did the 

 soreness affect? 



Mr. Meeiian : Right under the throat, just where the tongue rests; 

 at the base of the tongue is where the inflammation first appears. It is 

 of a pinkish color, an unnatural pink, that becomes deeper as time goes 

 on, and then appears the swelling of the thyroid in cone-shaped lumps, 

 sometimes found in the gills, and found at the point of the throat in 

 quite a large number of instances. 



Professor Dyche: Does it break out — is there any raw place? 



Mr. Meehan : No, it is not raw; it is just like the tumor you see in 

 the throat on the neck of a human being, excepting, of course, it is 

 much smaller; it is essentially the same thing, apparently. 



Professor Dyche: Do you say that this leads to cancer? 



Mr. Meehan: 1 did not say that. \ said that somebody else said so. 

 On the contrary, the investigations that we made did not bear out the 

 theory that goitre is the first stage of cancer or that cancer necessarily 

 developed from it. Our investigations showed the reverse of that con- 

 tention. But that it could develop into cancer and sometimes might so 

 develop, was also apparent: but then it was jusl as a bruise that might 

 develop into cancer. Because a fish bad goitre it did not necessarily 

 mean that the disease would develop into cancer. 



The investigations were on these lines, that when a trout having a 

 severe case of goitre was taken from the ponds and placed in a stream 

 or water under different conditions, the disease apparently disappeared. 

 To all intents and purposes the fish fully recovered its health. If that 

 same fish were put hack again in the pond from which it was first taken 

 the goitre would reappear. Now, I am not a pathologist and I must 

 therefore take the utterances of people who are. I have been given to 

 understand that cancer is invariably progressive ; it does not rise and 

 become severe and then practically disappear, and then again become 

 severe. But that is just what happens in the case of goitre; that is, it 

 would entirely disappear if conditions were favorable. If we had goitre 

 in our ponds to any grefit extent and it was traced, we will say, to 

 overfeeding, and the amount of food was reduced to the proper quan- 

 tity, the fish, excepting those with which the disease had gone too far. 

 would get well. We never saw any fish die directly from goitre. We 

 found that the fish died invariably from fungus, which was produced, 

 presumably, by the lowering of their vitality because of the disease. 

 Although we found no fish that died directly from goitre, I can under- 

 stand that in some instances fish might die from it, because of the 

 tumor so choking up the gills that they could not operate properly. 



