18 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Trichinae in American Pork. 



We have already noticed the examinations of American pork 

 made at Hamburg during several years, and will follow with a few 

 more quotations of the same nature : 



At Rostock, 12 of G22 American sides were found trichinous. 

 At Gothenburg, 8 of 210 American sides were found trichinous. 

 At Ebbing, 2 per cent of the pieces examined were found trichinous. 

 In Schleswig-Holstein, of 5,673 pieces examined, 47 were found trichinous. 

 In 1877, 343 cases of infected American pork were reported, and 183 cases 

 of the disease in human beings. 



In the early part of the year 1881, badly infected American 

 pork was reported as having been found at Lyons, France. 



Professor Mueller, of the Berlin Yeterinary Institute, wrote me, 

 under date of December, 1880, that of eighty-eight live American 

 hogs (constituting a part of a shipment) that had been slaughtered 

 at Dresden, fourteen were found trichinous. 



Dr. Loring * says, " I do not know that Germany or France 

 has even examined for this disease in live hogs" 



The foregoing was reported by me in American papers at the 

 time, and subsequently in the report of the Imperial Board of 

 Health of Germany, and several German medical reviews ; and 

 could have been as well known to our agricultural department as 

 the presence of pleuro-pneumonia in the District of Columbia, a 

 fact that ocular demonstration of diseased lungs could scarcely force 

 upon our agricultural commissioner. 



At Turin, Italy, February, 1879, four per cent of a lot of Cin- 

 cinnati hams were found trichinous, which led to the Government 

 putting restrictive examinations on all further importations. 



A continual recurrence of such facts has caused a more or less 

 strong feeling on the Continent against our pork, a feeling which 

 nationalism and the public prints have fostered to the fullest extent. 



The result has been that in many countries restrictive measures 

 regulating the importation of American pork have been introduced, 

 which to a certain measure have acted as an embargo against further 

 importations. In some countries these measures have even been 

 extended to American lard, and a great alarm created about some 

 kind of hydraulic pressing out of the same instead of trying it out ; 

 in fact, everything possible is being done to keep out the competi- 

 tion of American products. 



* Letter to Health Congress, Savannah, 1881. 



