320 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



been tainted. As the patients failed to improve, but grew instead increas- 

 ingly worse and developed fever, the state epidemiologist, who was notified 

 of this outbreak, visited the premises, and obtained samples of water and 

 samples of blood and stools from the infected persons. The samples were 

 submitted to the state health laboratory for bacteriological examination; 

 the results were negative. The youngest member of the family in the 

 meanwhile became severely ill and was placed in a hospital, where the usual 

 laboratory examinations were made, including a microscopic examination 

 of the spinal fluid, a spinal puncture having been resorted to because menin- 

 gitis was suspected. One microscopic field showed a single trichina larva, 

 and this at once led to a suspicion that the patient, as well as the other mem- 

 bers of the family, was suffering from trichinosis. Samples of the pork 

 sausage still available on the farm were sent immediately to the laboratory 

 of the Montana Livestock Sanitary Board, and a telegraphic report from 

 that laboratory to the hospital contained the information that the sausage 

 was heavily infested with trichinae. The hospitalized patient succumbed 

 to the infection about three weeks after eating the infested sausage. In the 

 meanwhile other persons outside of X's immediate family became ill and 

 on the date of the last report 38 persons, as already noted, were ill and suf- 

 fering from trichinosis. 



The symptoms shown by the affected persons were due to the progress 

 in the growth, development and migration of the trichinae in the bodies 

 of their victims. The early gastro-intestinal irritation and pain were the 

 result of the growth and development of the worms in the intestine, and 

 the swellings and pain in the muscles were caused by the penetration into 

 this tissue of the new-born trichinae, which wandered from the intestine 

 in the lymph and blood stream until they reached the muscles. The symp- 

 toms which were suggestive of meningitis were due, at least in part, to the 

 penetration of the wandering worms into the central nervous system. 



One of X's daughters ate some of the sausage well cooked and escaped 

 infection, while several members of her family who ate the sausage only 

 half-cooked became ill. A neighbor of one of the beneficiaries of X's 

 generosity is said to have stolen a number of sausages and his family of 

 five, including himself, became stricken with trichinosis. 



A sample of the sausage that brought about this epidemic was forwarded 

 to the Bureau of Animal Industry and was found in our laboratory to con- 

 tain approximately 2,800 trichina larvae per ounce. A piece of muscle from 

 one of eleven hogs purchased from X by the Montana Livestock Sanitary 

 Board and later slaughtered was examined in our laboratory and found to 

 contain an average of about 168,000 trichinae per ounce. 



This outbreak has been described in detail because it illustrates the point 

 that human beings acquire trichinosis from eating raw or slightly cooked 

 pork, shows the principal symptoms of trichinosis, and that this disease 

 may terminate in death. The data given afford conclusive proof that the 



