SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 183 



connection with many of our shell-fish beds, we may 

 take the recent action of the Health Committee of 

 Birmingham in refusing to admit mussels from 

 a certain locality in Wales without a certificate of 

 purity. As a result the fishermen have applied 

 to our Committee to provide them with such a 

 certificate. This is a matter requiring careful 



consideration. There is no doubt that such a certificate 

 is wanted, and ought, under proper regulation, to be of 

 great service in the interests both of the public health 

 and of the fishing industries. But, if decided on, it must 

 be granted not in relation to one locality only, but for 

 each fishery of the District where the conditions are 

 favourable, and could only be given after adequate 

 inspection, and subject to periodic renewal. Unfor- 

 tunately it could not be given for certain localities 

 under their present conditions. Conditions, however, 

 keep changing. Both shell-fish beds and sewage 

 distribution undergo alteration, and so the pollution of 

 a locality may improve or may become worse. Not only 

 is each bed or laying a problem in itself, but it may be 

 a different problem next year from what it is now. 

 Moreover, in the case of beds that are condemned as 

 dangerously polluted, remedial measures might well be 

 undertaken. If compulsory cleansing of the living 

 mussels in tanks of purer water for a short period before 

 sending to market is not found efficacious, Dr. Bulstrode's 

 suggestion of complete sterilisation by steaming, as is 

 the custom with cockles at Leigh, may have to be adopted. 



It is evident that if the shell-fish from specified 

 localities in the District are or are not to be certified as 

 fit for human food, some standard of permissible 

 bacteriological impurity must be adopted. In respect of 

 shell-fish examination as a matter of official routine, this 



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