35 



contain Trichinae, a result not favourable for the Americans. 

 The State board of health of Massachusetts, reported two out- 

 breaks of Tricliinosis, in ]870 ; one at Saxon\ille. Six persons 

 partook of tlie infected meat ; three were attacked, and one died. 

 Soon after, another at Lowell, in the same State, but there was 

 no fatality. Again, Dr. Sutton of Amova, Indiana, reports an 

 outbreak there in 1874. Nine persons were attacked, of whom 

 three died. He states, that a considerable portion of the pigs 

 killed in the Western States are so affected. In several thousand 

 examinations made in South Indiana, 3 per cent, to IG per cent, 

 of the pigs contained Trichinae. The Western States, he says, 

 send away 5,000,000 pigs each winter, and if only 4 per cent, are 

 infected, the number would amount to 200,000. According to a 

 recent report of the Sanitary Committee of Massachusetts, it 

 appears that of 2,701 pigs examined, 154, or nearly 6 per cent, 

 contained Trichinae. Several cases of lard, imported into France 

 from America, have been found infected. 



In the Lancet of Ililarch 19th, of the present year, will be 

 found a full account of one of the largest epidemics known. It 

 occurred at Kiam, near the sources of the Jordan, and arose 

 from eating the flesh of a Wild Boar ; the writer found no less 

 than 257 persons affected. 



The symptoms in man usually appear after a few days, and 

 may continue for a month or six weeks, and even longer in severe 

 cases. When the worms have once become encapsuled, all further 

 trouble ceases, and for ever. They divide themselves into classes. 

 (1) Fever, which persists more or less throughout, and is not 

 characteristic ; (2) Gasfro-Infestinal irritation, especially during 

 the first week ; (3) Excruciating pains in the muscles, especially 

 on movement, due to the irritation set up by the presence and 

 migration of the worms, and (4) Dropsical sweJlinff of the face 

 and limbs. Sometimes one set of symptoms, sometimes another 

 has prevailed. The illness has consequently been ascribed to 

 various causes. Sometimes diarrhoea and vomiting have pre- 

 dominated and even caused death. The disease has then been 

 taken for Cholera, as was the case in one of the German epidemics, 

 at Hedersleben. If these symptoms are less acute, the case has 

 been put down as Typhoid Fever, as in the instance of the 

 epidemic on board the Cornwall, and for a time in Zenker's first 

 case. When the muscular pains have prevailed, it has been called 



