American Fisheries Society. 99 
A. It is my belief that they have existed from the beginning 
of time. 
Q. Do you think the changed conditions due to deforestation 
or pollution of the waters have caused the increase ? 
A. I don’t know. I have a strong suspicion that way. 
Q. It is true, is it not, that there is deforestation around those 
lakes ? 
A. Yes, most of the wood has been removed and there is 
pollution present, and it is growing every year, so are the para- 
sites; and the brook trout are disappearing. 
Mr. Titcomb: I think the proposition is beyond the scientist. 
The same problem presents itself in crowded cities, where, among 
the poorer classes you have dirty, filthy tenement houses, breeding 
all sorts of disease, and these diseases go out to a certain extent 
among the well-to-do classes. But the trout is quite as clean 
as a human being, and needs quite as clean water; and therefore 
when you get the filth you have in those lakes you may expect 
the trout to become diseased. I do not believe the scientist can 
overcome that difficulty. You must stop water pollution by 
legislation, and then disease will cease. 
Mr. Whish: It occurs to me that your simile about the 
tenement houses is very good. I had the pleasure of working in 
New York some years as a newspaper man, and was there when 
the tenement house agitation was going on, and I know of my 
own knowledge that the association of tenement house reformers 
improved that condition. Why can not our scientific men give 
us ahand and help us in this situation now? I do not imagine 
that we can control fish diseases in natural waters, but that is 
not the proposition. What we have is a fish hatchery containing 
water, the flow of which we can regulate, and we can regulate 
also the number of fish and their food. Now why can you not 
successfully combat a disease which is killing that particular 
kind of fish? I think it can be done, if the disease is studied. 
I have tried to collect the literature of fish diseases but I do not 
know of a single general treatise on the diseases of fishes that is 
published in this country. The only one I know is by Dr. Bruno 
Hofer of Munich, and that deals with different fish than ours. 
