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 IJ- 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. Eound the 
orifices of each wound there w^as 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 v^'as able to 
