178 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



SEWAGE AND SHELL-FISH. 

 By W. A. Herdman. 



The first " Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Memoir" 

 (Oysters and Disease), by Prof. Boyce and myself in 1899, 

 drew attention to the serious amount of sewage contamina- 

 tion in certain samples of shell-fish. Since then much 

 additional evidence has been obtained, both in our own 

 district and also from other parts of the coast, that, as the 

 result of the discharge of unpurified sewage into tidal 

 waters, extensive pollution of the shell-fish beds and of the 

 waters generally of our coastal fisheries takes place — 

 causing serious injury to health, and affecting the 

 prosperity of the fishing industries. It has now been 

 established, and is generally admitted, that shell -fish 

 contaminated by sewage may produce enteric fever and 

 other illness in human beings. 



Mr. Dawson and I, in the evidence we gave before the 

 Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, both discussed 

 cases of serious contamination of shell-fish beds in our 

 district. Since then, however, Mr. Dawson has made a 

 special survey of the mussel beds, and has drawn up a 

 report which, with his permission, I insert here in order 

 that it may be placed on permanent record. This report 

 was submitted to the Lancashire and Western Sea- 

 Fisheries Committee last November, and has since been 

 made public. 



