i2 4 THE MICROSCOPE. 



regretted, that while the governments of England, France, and 

 Germany, are employing their leading scientific men in such work, 

 Congress has deliberately stopped a most promising series of inves- 

 tigation of this kind, and has resolved to confine its efforts to 

 paying bills after an epidemic has made its appearance. — Science. 



Are Trichinae Killed bv Salt? — The prohibition of the 

 importation of American pork by the German Government, on 

 account of the alleged presence of the microscopic worm known as 

 trichinae, has awakened a large degree of interest among pork rais- 

 ers and shippers in this country. That trichinae are sometimes found 

 in pork (and in some other food flesh) is not to be doubted. That 

 proper cooking of meats for food destroys them is unquestionable. 

 That all authenticated cases of injury to health arising from the 

 presence of this microscopic worm were traced to the eating of un- 

 cooked or half-raw meat is a fact. But that the salting of meat 

 destroyed the parasite is still a matter of doubt, or, at least, it is a 

 subject of dispute. 



On this point United States Consul John Wilson, stationed at 

 Brussels, makes some statements, based on his own observations. 

 He says: 



" I have myself been present when officially appointed micro- 

 scopists at some of the abattoirs of this country have been engaged 

 in examining American pork for trichinae, and have been invited by 

 these gentlemen to see for myself, through their microscopes, the 

 peculiar cell and spiral coil of the animal; but, on carefully examin- 

 ing them, I have only observed, blended with the tissue and minute 

 salt crystals, the entombed animal, evidently as destitute of life as 

 the structure in which it was embedded. 



"It is claimed by most trichinic observers that the process of 

 generation and birth of this little animal invariably takes place in 

 the stomach and intestinal canal, and that within a few days from its 

 birth it has so matured as to penetrate the walls of the intestines 

 and rapidly make its way through the various intervening structures 

 to the remote muscular tissue of the animal it infects, there to be 

 speedily encysted and endowed with a subsequent dormant existence 

 of several years, during which time its presence occasions little or 

 no inconvenience. Of this theory of the life and movements of this 



