ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1089 



course of four to six months, showed indicatio)is 

 of thyroid trouble (but not definite cancer) 

 while others gave negative results. This mat- 

 ter is an extremely interesting and suggestive 

 one, but apparently it will need to be substan- 

 tiated by further experiments along the same 

 line before it can be accepted. Though many 

 efforts have been made by various investigators 

 to inoculate healthy animals with cancer, all 

 such experiments have failed except when the 

 inoculation has been confined to the same vari- 

 ety of animal. Also, efforts .to transmit the dis- 

 ease by feeding cancerous tissues have been un- 

 availing, and this was the case even with 

 Dr. Ga} lord's experiments with fishes. While 

 it is not beyond the range of possibility 

 that the exciting cause of cancer might be 

 transmitted in the drinking water, the failure 

 of all efforts to transmit the disease directly 

 must make us hesitate to accept the above men- 

 tioned experiments with dogs and rats as con- 

 clusive. Also, it must not be forgotten that 

 parasites in general are very specifically re- 

 lated to definite hosts, so that the transmis- 

 sion of parasites from one species to another 

 is, as a rule, impossible. Even among the mam- 

 mals it usually has been found impossible to 

 transmit parasitic diseases beyond the range 

 of a single species. 



The cause of goitre, like that of cancer, has 

 been long sought for without success ; but the 

 two diseases have always been considered quite 

 distinct, though of course it is quite possible 

 for cancer to develop in diseased thyroid tis- 

 sues. 



As to the possibility of transmitting fish can- 

 cer to the human being, there is at present no 

 occasion for alarm. Even if it were possible 

 to inoculate human beings with fish cancer, 

 which seems highly improbable, there could 

 be no danger in eating fishes with incipient 

 cancer, since cooking would naturally destroy 

 .mytliing which would tend to excite the disease 

 in man. No one, of course, would care, on gen- 

 eral principles, to eat fishes in which any dis- 

 ease was evident. 



Thyroid goitre of fishes has been known in 

 trout .-md salmon hatcheries for many years, 

 where it is supposed to be due to over feeding, 

 over crowding, and other unhygienic conditions, 

 and it is known to respond readily to the iodine 

 treatment and to greater cleanliness in the 

 liatchery tanks and ponds. There has been no 

 evidence of any increase in human goitre or 

 cancer among the employees working in such 

 hatcheries, or the people living in the vicinity 

 and drawing their water supply from these 

 sources. 



There is, then, no cause whatever for alarm 

 that cancer will become infectious because of 

 the prevalence of this thyroid disease in cer- 

 tain dish hatcheries. R. C. Osbitrn. 



NEW MEMBERS. 

 January 1, 1914, to March 1, 1914. 



LIFE MEMBERS. 



DeWitt, William G. Fuguet, Howard 



Guggenheim, Daniel Jackson, Dr. Victor Hugo 



Streeter, Daniel Denison 



ANNUAL MEMBERS. 



Anderson, Archibald J. C, 

 Baldwin, Albert H., 

 Biirtlctt, Philip G., 

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 Bigelow, William S., 

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 harles. 



