88 Natural History Bulletin. 



such swine as are reared and fattened under circumstances 

 that preclude the visits of rats in any considerable numbers to 

 their pens and feeding troughs. If sanitary legislation is ever 

 to effect anything in preventing attacks of trichinosis this is 

 the direction in which it must look. Systematic and concerted 

 warfare on rats may do some good, but much more will be 

 accomplished by preventing the sale of animals that have fed 

 on offal or animal refuse of any kind, or animals ihat have 

 been fattened in close quarters favoring the visits of large 

 numbers of rats. The small pens are often a mere refuge 

 and breeding place for rats. When swine are fed exclusively 

 on grains or other vegetable products and reared and fattened 

 in considerable nun^bers in comparatively large enclosures 

 where there are no structures that would afford a harboring 

 and breeding place for rats, then they may be exposed for sale 

 on our local markets, or sent abroad to supply the markets of 

 the world, with a high degree of confidence in their perfect 

 wholesomeness so far as trichinae are concerned. If packers 

 and shippers handled only swine from farms, where the ani- 

 mals are prepared for market in large numbers, neither 

 France nor Germany nor any other country would have occa- 

 sion on sanitary grounds to enact prohibitive laws respecting 

 the importation of American pork. When it is remembered 

 that probabl}' ninety-nine per cent, of the animals killed, by 

 western packers at least are from farms, it will be seen that 

 the danger from trichinae to our foreign customers is ridic- 

 ulously small. As it is the Americans take most of the risks 

 themselves. The swine that have been kept for some months 

 at our slaughter pens are disposed of in the local markets; 

 the family hog, with all his possibilities for harboring para- 

 sites, goes into the private pork barrel. It is our best and 

 cleanest that are sent abroad. 



The risks that the Americans take are after all very small. 

 In the very worst cases thorough cooking of the flesh obviates 

 all possibility of danger, so that even if every animal were 

 infested to its utmost capacity, it would be a rare thing for the 



