Bull Scand Soc Parasitol 1994 (2); 4:92-96 PARASITES OF FISH OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN NORHTERN EUROPE, A LITERATURE ANALYSIS O.N. Pugachev 1 and H.-P. Fagerholm 2 1 Zological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia 2 Institute of Parasitology, Abo Akademi University, 20520 Abo, Finland Introduction The early investigations of fish parasites in European fresh-, brackish- and marine- waters date back several centuries. In other words, fish parasitological research has a history analogous to that of the parasitological science as a whole reaching back to the first naturalists. Thus, when analysing literature relating to parasites of fish of economic value in Northern Europe, one has to review the situation for as long as the last three centuries. A bibliography which has recently been compiled by the present authors (Pugachev & Fagerholm, in press), provides the basis of the analysis presented in this review. Bibliography A bibliography on fish parasites and parasitic disease of fish of N. Europe, was compiled (Pugachev & Fagerholm, in press) as it was considered valuable to produce a bibliography by which the Russian literature can be made more easi- ly accessible, as titles are translated into English. Also titles of publications pub- lished in Nordic languages have been translated. It was feasible to produce such a work now because of the efficient means available to deal with biblio- graphic information which is provided by present day computers and software. Although the bibliography, upon which the results are based is not claimed to be complete (some 2000 references included), the information given describe the trends in the scientific activities in this field. Published papers up to the early 1990s were included. Database One aim of this bibliography was to use the literature which was analysed as a basis for a database on parasites of fish in N Europe. This work is well advanced. In this virtual data-base, a full in-text indexing will be possible. In the work special emphasis was put on the early literature which today, sofar, has not been systematically introduced to any mainframe computers, while current studies efficiently can be retrieved from on line databases. The criteria used for introducing references into the bibliography, and the database, were that the papers should include parasite- and parasitic disease data of fish from N Europe (Region from