JULY 23, 1897.] 
OYSTERS: A REVIEW OF IGNORANCE. 
ONE of the greatest services which science 
is doing for the world is the exposure of igno- 
rance, and the inculcation of the doctrine that a 
thorough groundwork of the rudiments of general 
science should be laid by those who aspire to 
teach or to practice medicine, and it should be 
appreciated by the public that those alone who 
possess it are worthy of confidence. 
In illustration of the actuality of the need, 
and partly as a review of the question con- 
cerned, I will criticise a leading article con- 
tained in a journal called Modern Medicine and 
Bacteriological Review, which purports to show 
that the oyster must be abandoned as a food. 
This article begins by reciting the plenteous- 
ness of bacteria in the oyster, and says it is ‘‘a 
creature whose diet consists of the offal of the 
ocean, and which lives upon material so filthy 
and noxious in character that it requires the 
unceasing activity of a liver constituting nearly 
one-half the bulk of its body to protect it from 
impending death.’’ It then cites the cases of 
typhoid fever traced to the oyster, quoting the 
British Medical Journal, which comments on 
the need for supervising the oyster beds; and 
then the editorial remarks that the beds are 
usually seated in the mouths of rivers and bays: 
‘The oyster is fond of typhoid bacilli; it eats 
them as a tidbit; it will not miss a chance of 
swallowing millions of these mischief-making 
germs if opportunity is afforded. Indeed, this 
is the very business for which nature designed 
the oyster. It feasts upon the slime and ooze 
which covers the ocean’s bed, near the shore, 
and the seaweeds which grow in such localities. 
The oyster has neither teeth nor claws with 
which to tear and masticate solid food. It is 
designed to live on the decomposing germ- 
infected substances which, with its filmy beard, 
it wipes off the slime-covered weeds and stones 
which abound in oyster beds.”’ 
The writer of this screed, posing as a bacteri- 
ologist and zoologist, seems to be ignorant alike 
of both sciences. We can here get an idea of 
the amount of harm which can be done by soi 
disant teachers through the medium of alleged 
scientific journals. 
It is in the first place evident that this writer 
is ignorant of zoology. He does not know how 
SCIENCE. 
137 
the oyster feeds; he thinks it wipes its food off 
the weeds with its beard! I have seen some 
individuals use their beards for dinner napkins, 
but the oyster’s is truly useful; it is fork and 
spoon, too, it appears! Every student of nat- 
ural history should know that the oyster’s beard 
or ctenidia is his gills; that he feeds by draw- 
ing a current of water by ciliary action mainly 
of the ctenidia into his mouth and lives on the 
solid particles which are contained in the water, 
and that the so-called liver is a digestive gland. 
Furthermore, the oyster is plainly not de- 
signed by nature for a scavenger. His natural 
habitat is on a clean rocky bottom, and not in 
the mouth of a river, as fresh water is injurious 
to him, consequently he cannot live on slime and 
ooze. When oysters are ‘parked’ into a muddy 
or even a sandy bed they do not thrive at all. 
After this display of biological ignorance one 
wonders if the writer, presumably a doctor, can 
tell a mollusc from a worm. 
Now, as to the bacteriology of the matter, it 
is plain that if the oyster feeds on typhoid bacilli 
he must assimilate them, and when living things 
are digested they generally die during the pro- 
cess, consequently when we eat an oyster we do 
not eat live bacilli. But they,can live in the 
stomach and gut a long time, also other en- 
teric parasites. 
It is an unquestionable fact that typhoid 
fever could not be caused by the introduction of 
any number, even millions, of dead bacilli into 
the human body, but, at the most, some tem- 
porary illness from the ptomaines in the mix- 
ture. 
Finally, the ‘Medical Progress and so forth’ 
assumes that the oyster’s large liver, which, as 
stated above, is not homologous to the liver, is 
a poison trap. I was not aware that this was 
the main function of an hepatic cell. Plainly, 
the primary deduction from a large liver would 
be that metabolic processes were complex and 
that nutriment needed to be stored in large 
quantity. The oyster’s liver, however, does not 
seem much different from those of his con- 
geners. 
All this sensational essay of ignorance will 
doubtless be reproduced by the small-fry med- 
ical journals and the daily press. It must con- 
tribute toward hurting the oyster industry. It 
