166 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 
trichina spiralis which infests the muscular system. So long as it 
remains in the muscle, it lies quietly coiled up in a spiral form in a 
small cyst. But as the recent investigations of Virchow, Leuckart, 
Zenker, and Turner have shown, when the flesh of an animal con- 
taining these worms is swallowed, they become disengaged from their 
cysts, young worms develope in the interior of the females, and this 
takes place with such rapidity that in a few days the intestinal mucus 
becomes packed with multitudes of minute threadlike worms. Then 
from the intestines they migrate in swarms into the muscular system, 
and there enclose themselves in cysts possessing the same form as those 
with which their parents were enveloped. The flesh employed as human 
food which is most frequently infested by the trichina is that of the 
pig, and more than one case has now been recorded in which violent 
symptoms, and even death, have followed the use of the flesh of the 
trichinatous pigs,* and Professor Leuckart has found that trichina 
meat retains much of its injurious properties, even after some amount 
of pickling and smoking. We may learn, then, from these instances, 
how important it is that animals affected with such parasitic diseases 
should not only most scrupulously be avoided as articles of human 
food, but that their flesh should not even be given to other animals. 
The great diminution which has taken place in the supply of cotton 
and the consequent stoppage of the factories of our numerous Lan- 
cashire towns, by throwing many thousands of persons out of employ- 
ment, necessarily excited much anxiety not only as to how money was 
to be procured for their maintenance, but the best and most economical 
way in which this money was to be spent. The report that typhus 
fever was making its appearance in some of the towns also excited 
attention and alarm, and in obedience to the wishes of the Lords of 
the Privy Council, Mr. Simon requested Dr. Buchanan and Dr. E. 
Smith to visit the distressed districts and report upon the local pre- 
cautions taken to prevent that destitution which breeds disease, and to 
obtain more exact information with regard to the minute economics of 
diet. The report of Dr. E. Smith is of a most complete and elaborate 
nature. He has in it endeavoured to answer two important questions. 
1st. What is the minimum allowance of money to purchase sufficient 
food for the maintenance of healthP 2nd. What is the best method 
of expending that allowance ? 
He has compiled a large collection of formule and dietaries, with 
the wholesale prices and nutritive values of the articles employed. 
His estimates are based on the real amount of nutriment which is re- 
quired by these populations; viz. 380,100 grains of carbon, and 1,400 
grains of nitrogen, weekly. He suggests that relief should be ad- 
ministered in three ways—in money, cooked food, and uncooked food. 
From the actual experience of the people, it would appear that single 
persons now spend weekly 2s. 43d. each for food ; but in the case of 
families, where there are young children, the rate of expenditure is 
* As these pages are going through the press, we notice a paragraph in the daily 
public prints, in which it is stated that at Herrstadt, in Prussian Silesia, a large 
number of persons who had eaten at dinner trichinatous pork, were taken suddenly 
and seriously ill, and that of these sixteen died. 
