FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 301 



In 1851 Luschka corrected the mistake that the blunt extremity was the head. 

 In 1859 Leuckart and Virchow, by feeding the trichinous flesh to hogs and dogs, 

 reared the mature animals, which they confounded with another parasite. 



In 1860 the momentous importance of this subject became known, for in this 

 year Zenker discovered the myriad parasites in the flesh of a girl brought to the 

 Dresden Hospital for treatment of supposed typhus, where she died. lie found 

 the flesh full of the young, and discovered the mature worms in the intestine, 

 traced the origin of the disease to the eating of uncooked pork, and thus 

 mimasked this seemingly harmless and insignificant worm, and revealed it as 

 the author of a most fatal and excruciating disease. Thus one case in the hands 

 of a wise physician elucidated the whole subject, and threw the needed light on 

 cases which had perplexed the wisest practitioners. Thus Zenker showed the 

 origin of the dreaded disease trichinosis — eating trichinous pork. Both Zenker 

 and Virchow showed that the worms develoj^ed in the intestine, and that the 

 young when born migrated at once to the muscles, when they destroy its integ- 

 rity. Zenker, Virchow, and Luckart showed that these muscular forms grew 

 to maturity in the muscles, which as Zenker demonstrated, caused the terrible 

 trichinosis, which resulted in the death of the human sufferer, and as Virchow 

 showed, were also fatal to the lower animals. Zenker showed that capsulated 

 or encysted trichina were cases of natural cure. Thus healthy animals may 

 carry the seeds of recurring disease. 



Since this famous and momentous discovery of Zenker, the cases of undoubted 

 trichinosis have been alarmingly common. Add to these the cases diagnosed as 

 typhoid fever and acute rheumatism, but which were really the work of these 

 fell destroyers, and we have a showing that may well make us tremble with 

 apprehension. Xot to go outside our State, we note the cases at Port Huron, 

 Detroit, Flint, and South Haven, which latter were under the charge of a phy- 

 sician born and educated in this county, and once a resident of this city. The 

 fact of these cases, coupled with that of the obscurity of the disease, and a want 

 of knowledge of its symptoms among very many physicians, leads to the unwel- 

 come conclusion that trichinosis is no rare visitor among us, a conclusion which 

 demands of us all that we give the subject most earnest consideration, lest we 

 ourselves become victims. 



Hoiu the Existence of the Worms is Continued. 



As already stated, the trichina will exist and prosper in the intestines of hogs, 

 rats, mice, cats, and rabbits, etc., as well as in those of man. The young, 

 too, will thrive in the muscles of the same animals. It is probable that it 

 inhabits for the most part the interior of man, the hog, and the rat. Hence 

 we see that if trichinous flesh from any of the above animals be eaten by ani- 

 mals of the same species, trichinosis is most sure to result. Man may become 

 a victim by eating pork or sausage in which the young worms have not been 

 destroyed, while rats and hogs may be inoculated by eating trichinous flesh of 

 other rats or hogs which have died of the disease, or in case of hogs, flesh of 

 slaughtered hogs which are suffering or have previously suffered from the dis- 

 ease. 



Again, the gavid females, together with the young tricliinaj, may pass from 

 the intestines, either of man, rats, or hogs, during the diarrhoea which always 

 attends the incipient stages of the disease. Hence the swine, if permitted to go 

 half starved, or if allowed or forced, as is far too often the case, to feed in the 



