FISH PARASITES AND THE PUBLIC 

 HEALTH 



By Prof. Edwin Linton, 

 Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa. 



It had not been my intention to prepare a paper for 

 the annual meeting of the American Fisheries Society 

 this year, but certain recent happenings, of which the 

 parasites of fishes were an important factor, suggest that 

 I again discuss this question. Three years ago I pre- 

 sented a paper to this society on "Cestode Cysts in the 

 Flesh of Marine Fish and their Bearing on Food Values,"* 

 in which I fondly hoped, but vainly as it appears, that 

 any fears which might have existed, either active or 

 dormant, in the public mind respecting the effect of 

 parasites in fishes used for food, would be dispelled. 



In June, of the present year, the Department of 

 Public Health of the City of New York condemned cer- 

 tain cargoes of butterfish amounting to many tons, 

 thirty I have been told, on account of the alleged pres- 

 ence of parasites in the flesh. I was asked by the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries to have an interview with 

 the New York health authorities concerning this matter 

 of the butterfish. The interview was granted and held 

 in the offices of the Department of Health for the City 

 of New York on June 21, 1915. Previous to this inter- 

 view I had supposed that the parasites to which objection 

 had been made were the minute cysts of the cestode 

 Otobothrium crenacolle. I had already discussed the 

 bearing of this parasite on the food value of the butter- 

 fish in the paper cited above, and was prepared to give 

 additional evidence of the harmlessness of this parasite 

 even if eaten by man in his fish diet. I was much re- 

 lieved therefore upon being assured by the officials that 

 they had not objected to the butterfish on account of 

 the cestode parasites. A new charge, however, was 



•Trans. Am. Fish. Soc, for 1912, pp. 119-127. 



