TRICHINIASIS OF MAN AND ANIMALS. 19 



With regard to our pork, I think the assertions of the Germans 

 and their restrictive measures are just. 



Naturally enough the old adage, " Touch a man's pocket and you 

 touch his heart," found an illustration on this side of the Atlantic. 



The pork-producers of every variety became very much alarmed, 

 and called upon the Government to assist them. 



Our consuls all over Europe were requested to make inquiries 

 as to the true nature of these reports, and to report to their own 

 Government. It is not within the nature of my work to consider 

 these reports in detail; but, suffice it to say that they displayed 

 fully as much patriotism for the purity of American pork as the 

 Continentals did for their own. Some went so far as to call the 

 whole thing a humbug. A real desire to know the truth pervaded 

 neither our representatives at home nor abroad. 



As with pleuro-pneumonia of our cattle, so with trichiniasis of 

 the hog, our Government adopted a prevaricating and false course. 

 It sought to "bluff down" the results of foreign examinations, and 

 either did not seek to discover, or ignored the results of, home ex- 

 aminations. 



In the face of a report of the State Board of Health of Massa- 

 chusetts — numerous copies of which were sent to Washington — 

 which contained a paper on the subject of trichiniasis, and statistics 

 of the examination of the largest number of hogs which had until 

 then been made in the country, the State Department published 

 a singular document, which requires attention. It utterly ignored 

 the statistics of the above report. 



Clauses 8, 9, and 10 are as follows : 



8. That the percentage of American hogs infected with trichinae 

 is, in all probability, by reason of the superiority of the breed 

 (which ?) and feeding, much less than that among the hoys of any 

 other country. 



9. That freedom from trichiniasis of the two great pork-consum- 

 ing centers of the West, Chicago and Cincinnati, furnishes the 

 strongest possible evidence of the purity of American pork. In 

 Chicago, of forty thousand deaths, with causes, reported for a series 

 of years, only two were from trichiniasis. During the same time 

 none were reported in Cincinnati. 



10. The reported cases of trichiniasis among human beings have 

 resulted from eating uncooked pork, etc. 



With regard to trichinae in American hogs, the above-quoted 

 sections from a state document have no foundation whatever. 

 They have nothing to stand upon. 



