As a series of studies to clarify clonorchicidal substances in body surface mucus of some fresh-water fishes, the substance in the epidermal mucus of Cyprinus carpio was isolated by silica gel column and thin layer chromatography and analyzed for its chemical nature. Wormicidal trial was done in vitro, and the results obtained are summarized as follows: The mucus was extracted by ethyl ether and separated into 4 fractions by column chromatography using benzene as solvent. The second fraction with yellowish red colour among them showed the strongest clonorchicidal effect. The yellowish red fraction obtained by column chromatography was then fractionated into 6 spots by thin layer chromatography with petrol. ether/chloroform(30/70, v/v), and the Rf. 0.714 spot among the 6 spots showed the strongest effect. The Rf. 0.714 spot was further fractionated into 6 spots by thin layer chromatography with benzene/acetone (90/10, v/v), and the Rf. 0.800 spot among the later 6 spots revealed the strongest effect. The Rf. 0.800 spot was chromatographed on column with benzene and 2 fractions were obtained. The second fraction of light brown colour represented the final purified fraction. By these purification procedures, clonorchicidal substance was purified 15-fold with 0.03 percent yield from the mucus of C. carpio, and 10mg of the final fraction killed the cercaria in 26 min, the metacercaria in 115 min, and the adult in 443 min. Infra red and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometric analysis of the purified substance revealed that the substance belongs to an ethyl ester of unsaturated fatty acid with 2 double bonds, 15 methylene groups and l methyl group.
