DO FISH SUFFER PAIN ?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 47, 22 November 1890, Page 2

DO FISH SUFFER PAIN ?

The old assertion, often made and frequently contradicted and refuted, that fish, being cold-blooded animals, do not feel pain, or, at any rate if they do, only feel it in an infinitesimal degree, is again being extensively circulated in the pages of two or three of the cheap periodicals of the period. As indicative of the varied opinions held on this subject, two very opposite decisions were once given on the subjeet- by eminent Edinburgh surgeons. Dr. Lizars, on being asked the question, ‘ Do fish feel pain ?’ replied, ‘ Yes, certainly they do, and, considering their constitution, just as acutely as human beings.’ Dr. Knox, the celebrated anatomist, replied to the same question by a prompt ‘ No, not to any extent worth considering.’ Who then snail decide when doctors differ ’ It is of course easy enough to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but there are many who want to know the reason why, or at least who desire to be put in possession of the facts and arguments on which assertions are founded. At one time famons anglers and others, who in their day handled many fish of many kinds, possessed only a very hazy idea regarding the faculties of these denizens of the water, which were reputed to be without sense of any sort I Doctor Monro, the great Scotch surgeon, proved most effectually by means of an elaborate series of experiments that fish enjoyed a keen sense of hearing, and ‘ Christopher North ’ ridiculed an idea at one time entertained, that fish had no power of feeling a smell. ‘ How can you say so,’ said the genial North, ‘in the face of the ravenous way they dash at some of your baits, say salmon roe.’ It has been again and again proved that by'using ground bait fish can be attracted to a given point, where their captors are waiting for them. The sardine fishermen bait their ground with a preparation of cold roe, which they find profitable, as it attracts the fish. Because fish have been found living with hooks in their flesh is one of the arguments that has been employed by persons who maintain that these creatures feel no pain, or very little. But the hook in the flesh is an accident ; the fish took the hook when it had a tempting morsel of bait upon it. We may be sure it did not of its own free will take in its mouth a bare hook, thinking it would be likely to enjoy it ! Again, persons who fall in with such fish forget that the poor creature has no hand to pull out the old hook with, and so it remains, and the trout or pike has no alternative but to put up with the inconvenience and pain. As a rule, such fishes are lank and lean, not having grown in size or put on fat. Because fish are reputed to be insensible to pain, some kinds of them are subjected to revolting cruelties. In Holland the flounders are trimmed alive. The writer has seen these fish writhing in the terrible agony they suffered from the operation of clipping their fins anil docking their tails. Eels, too, are subjected to gross cruelties, being frequently skinned when living ! Lady Burdett Courts tried to get the shell-fish boilers of Billingsgate to adopt a more human method of dealing with crabs and lobsters than boiling them alive, which, as could be seen, caused them an immensity of pain. The conclusion arrived at by a lecturer was that fishes did not feel pain because of the smallness of their brainpower—a condition which is confirmed by their being mute. But horses have a wonderfully small brain when theii gigantic size is taken into account, and yet they feel pain very acutely. Me, that is man, cannot of course know the precise amount of pain suffered by a fish that is wounded, but that it suffers pain in an acute degree is now admitted by all candid inquirers. It has a certain organization, it is cold-blooded, but despite of that it can be made to suffer acutely. Angling is a delightful pastime, but humane disciples of the art are always quick to put the fish they catch out of pain.