CHAP. 73. (49.)—THE MALADIES OF FISHES.
We do not find it stated that all kinds of fishes are subject
to epizoötic diseases,[1] like other animals of a wild nature:
but it is evidently the fact that individuals[2] among them are
attacked by maladies, from the emaciated appearance that many
present, while at the same moment others of the same species
are taken quite remarkable for their fatness.
1. Nosh/mata loimw/dh, as Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 25, calls
them.
2. Cuvier says, that there are some maladies by which individuals are
attacked; but that it is not uncommonly the case that certain species are
attacked universally, as it were, by a sort of epidemic. There was an
instance of this, he says, in the lake of the valley of Montmorency, where
numbers of the fish were suddenly to be seen floating dead on the surface,
the skin of which was covered with red spots, while at the same time their
flesh had become disagreeable to the taste, and unwholesome.