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I was watching a show about Alaskan living where two men lived and camped out in the Alaska wilderness. They fished in a remote lake and of course ate the lake salmon caught in early Fall. One note the narrator made was that one of the men developed some kind of "rash" on his hands and this was attributed to cleaning the local fish. It didn't appear lethal but does any one know of this contact rash or maybe watched the same program?
Without seeing what it looked like, I'm making an assumption...only because I get a rash when handling fish on occasion. I think it's some kind of allergic reaction or sensitivity to the fish, fish slim or organism in the water. I have a problem with some algae types....OR its a Schistosome cercarial dermatitis...i.e. "Swimmers Itch" . In North America it's transmitted by birds and the mid host is snails. It can't grow to maturity in humans but it can last up to two weeks. It's not very much fun but it's not serious. I've caught fish then about a day after handling them my hands start to itch really intensely. They rash up. It doesn't happen all the time but it does happen a few times each year, just about always on northern inland lakes. It's very common here in Ontario, Michigan and other northern states and provinces.
http://www.the-travel-doctor.com/dermat14.jpg
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http://www.hope.edu/academic/biology...mitch/faq.html
It was common for those who fished a lot and or worked in the fish cannerys cleaning fish ( I did both ) to get cut by the salmons teeth. You can easily get an infection from this. Its usually on your thumbs which by the end of the season are sliced and diced pretty badly. We used to heat water in the washbasin to as hot as you could stand then add a lot of salt and soak for at least 5 minutes which usuall cleared it up. If it didn't, it was a trip to the doctor. By the 1970's the union demanded that all workers use rubber gloves that solved that problem. But on the stream or out in the boat I like to clean salmon right away because It prevents them spoiling too quickly. Salmon teeth are not that big but they sure do slice your thumbs up.
Also I and those I fished/worked with would sometimes get a rash on your hands or arms we used to use noxima extra care salve for that and it would go away in a week. The Ladies on the fish gutting line said it was from the slime. The slimier the fish the worse the rash.
In the coast guard during the 1960's we once had to get a higher level of clearance because the new Loran station was now operational. This required that we all get a new set of fingerprints taken. I have no idea why they couldn't just use the old ones. I was put on admin leave for a month while my sliced up thumbs healed so my new set of prints were Quote "more accurate". How dumb is that?