I stumbled across a bizzarre video in my recommended videos
feed on YouTube yesterday that shows a goldfish getting surgery on his head growth
blocking his vision (Note: this video is not for people who are squeamish,
although there is no blood):
The video was an interesting find overall, simply because it
had no actual correlation with any videos in my watch history. I haven’t
watched videos on fish or surgery, so to be recommended with a video featuring
both was unusual. To be honest, while I was engrossed by the goldfish surgery,
what made me keep watching was the maker, Colum’s Aquaponics’, use of clove oil
to sedate the fish.
This brought two thoughts to my mind. The first was that
clove oil has been recommended by traditional herbal medicine for toothaches. Typical
application may have entailed chewing a clove or putting it between the gums
and cheek next to the painful area. According to Colgate, clove oil has also been
on the rise as a form of alternative medicine for oral pain in recent times as
well [1]. Clove oil contains the chemical eugenol that is responsible for its
anesthetic properties and is also used in refined form for modern dental
applications [2]. Eugenol is a substituted guaiacol, making it related
chemically to other plant compounds like vanillin though with very different
effects [3]. Seemingly unrelated, this link between analgesia in humans and
anesthesia in fish makes the use of clove oil to numb a surgery appear
plausible to me, though a stretch.
The second was that in ancient Hawai’i, there was a method
of fishing that involved lacing a stream or tide pool with a plant tincture to sedate the
fish and cause them to float to the surface. The plants used included ‘ahuhu (Tephrosia
purpurea) containing the fish toxin tephrosin and ‘akia (Wikstroemia oahuensis)
[4(published in 1921, source must be treated as a work of its time),5]. Looking at some pictures of ‘akia on the internet, I immediately recognized
the plant to have grown all over my elementary school campus back home. That’s
pretty weird to think about, but it also makes me feel like I’ve missed out on
an opportunity for some fun experiments.
Hawai’i is not the only place to have practiced poison
fishing, though in general the practice is considered destructive and
paralleled to other wide-effect fishing methods like blast-fishing. And of
course, the limited reach of poison fishing would be no match for the current
global demand for fish. Yet while this fishing technique has been passed by in
modern times, the plants and chemicals once used for fishing may now find new
applications, namely in fish anesthesia for aquatic veterinary care.
I hope you enjoyed this short blurb on the interesting topic
of fish anesthesia, and be sure to leave a comment and share your thoughts on
the post. These past few weeks have been busy in school, and the first wave of
midterms (UPenn doesn’t understand the term “midterm”) has started to hit. I do
believe I will be able to post at least every other week, however, as seems to
be my current posting schedule, so be sure to look out for future posts. As
always, thanks for reading!
