in the Union but has had these same epidemics. There is an excavation 

 which runs directly down to the head of the spring, and we had imagined 

 that oiling the road had polluted the water; but Professor Rutger says 

 there was absolutely nothing of the kind there. 



De. W. T. Foster, Easton, Pa.: The only water ever found without 

 organisms was from an artesian well. Water may be pure for drinking 

 purposes and yet have organisms in it, and it still may affect fish, though 

 not human beings. 



De, G. C. Embody, Ithaca, N. Y. : Can any of these scientists tell 

 us what the chances are of carrying this disease from one hatchery to 

 another in eggs or in the package used in shipping eggs? 



Db. Belding : I do not know. Diseases undoubtedly vary as regards 

 transmission through eggs. In this particular disease you might be able to 

 get uncontaminated eggs, since the majority of fish stripped would not be in- 

 fected even if the disease were present among the brood stock. If fish with 

 infected body cavities were stripped, the eggs would be directly contami- 

 nated. Whether such eggs kept in running water would be thoroughly 

 cleansed of bacteria before the fry were hatched is at present unknown. 

 In this connection I seriously question the advisability of using raw fish 

 as food in hatcheries, owing to the danger of transmitting bacterial and 

 parasitic diseases. Pasteurizing or even bringing the food to a boil would 

 completely elimate this danger, but feeding raw fish will always be a 

 potential source of danger. 



Me. Titcomb : Is there more danger of transmitting the disease from 

 fish than there is from liver? 



Db. Belding : Fish infections are probably different from mam- 

 malian diseases, and by using diseased fish for food you would expose your 

 fish to diseases to which they were susceptible, whereas they probably would 

 not be infected by diseased mammalian food. Cold storage liver in the 

 course of handling might pick up a disease bacterium that would affect 

 your fish, but the chances of producing any fish disease except nutritional 

 or toxic disturbances are very slight. 



Mb. Leach : Do you believe that these bacterial diseases would be 

 injurious to human beings? 



Db, Belding : The causative organism of Furunculosis is not injuri- 

 ous because it will not grow at human body temperature. 



Me. Leach : Most of the fish fed to fish in the Mississippi Valley 

 are of the coarse species found there and are not considered of best quality 

 for human consumption. I think they would be very free from any such 

 disease. I think the same condition applies on the Atlantic Coast, except 

 that the herring and other fish which would be fed might be too stale for 

 the market. I do not see how they would contain such germs, especially 

 since they are from salt water. 



De. Belding : I am convinced that this disease is prevalent among 

 salt water fish and that it can be transmitted by feeding diseased fish to 

 trout. Definite proof upon this point is lacking, but Mr. Keil in his paper 

 of yesterday mentioned cases where, in his experience, this particular dis- 

 ease followed feeding fish food, and in the records of the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries there is also a description of a similar case. Thus 



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