The Doctor Fish
The Doctor Fish, also known as Garra Rufa is a tiny toothless Turkish spa fish, of the Garra species, naturally nibbling away those pesky dead skin that makes your skin dull and dead, leaving you with silky smooth hands and feet that look great from any direction. Many people also believe that the Doctor Fish therapy (Fish Spa) can cure problems like psoriasis, a disease that causes red, scaly patches to appear on the skin. Hot spring spas in Turkey with such fish have been running for more than 100 years and some people with skin problems swear by the treatment. For example, with psoriasis, the fish lick away the plaque which causes red patches and release a small quantity of dithranol, an enzyme which results in skin rejuvenation.
Garra rufa occurs in the river basins of the Northern and Central Middle East, mainly in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is legally protected from commercial exploitation in Turkey due to concerns of overharvesting for export. Garra rufa can be kept in an aquarium at home; while not strictly a "beginner's fish", it is quite hardy. For treatment of skin diseases, aquarium specimens are not well suited as the skin-feeding behavior fully manifests only under conditions where the food supply is somewhat scarce and unpredictable.
Some spas provide large fish ponds with thousands of doctor fish in it.
The practice is banned in several American states and Canadian provinces as cosmetology regulators believe the practice is unsanitary, with the Wall Street Journal claiming that "cosmetology regulations generally mandate that tools need to be discarded or sanitized after each use. But epidermis-eating fish are too expensive to throw away".The procedure is legal in Quebec, with a few clinics in Montreal.