230 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



by accident, or by a species of death which is quite different 

 from that which is the consequence of inflammation in the 

 higher classes of animals/' 



Dr Macartney's book was published so far back as 1838, 

 and many will be inclined to say, " Nous avous change tout 

 cela but I am not aware of any allusion to the subject in 

 more recent works, and several authorities upon physiology, 

 of whom I made inquiries, gave me answers to the same 

 effect as Dr Macartney. 



But when I inquired of the fishmongers, who took a more 

 practical view of the matter, I met with very different 

 answers, — not only that pus was found in fish, but pretty 

 frequently met with in particular kinds, in the turbot and 

 the cod especially ; that they habitually looked for abscesses 

 in the former fish, so that they might evacuate their con- 

 tents before sending them away to customers. 



As it was now pretty clear that somebody was wrong, I 

 endeavoured to test the different statements by the following 

 experiments : — 



1. I passed four threads of Paisley twine through the 

 back of a tench which weighed about 1 J lb. 



2. And the same number obliquely through the side of a 

 somewhat smaller tench. The threads were tied loosely in, 

 and the fish were placed in a large metal bath. 



These setons seemed to give the fish no uneasiness for 

 four days, but after that time they exhibited symptoms of 

 discomfort ; instead of swimming round the bath side by 

 side as formerly, they avoided each other, and kept their 

 noses under a sod I had laid in the bottom. Round the 

 orifices of each wound there was a dark red circle, and the track 

 of each seton appeared swollen and tender ; they seemed 

 rather to like being stroked with the hand on other parts, 

 but if the seton tracks were touched, they would struggle 

 violently and spring from the water. On the seventh day 

 a yellowish fluid trailed away in the water from the lower 

 wound of the smaller fish. This had the appearance of pus, 

 but the microscope showed that it consisted of broken down 

 muscular fibres and numbers of small round bodies. By the 

 time the setons had been in the fish a week, I was able to 



