TRICHINIASIS OF MAN AND ANIMALS. 



35 



Fig. 5. — Psorosperms in a Hog's Muscle. 

 (Leuckart.) 



In some cases cysticerci, measles, perish and become calcified. 

 These objects are somewhat larger than trichina-capsules, and often 

 contain a caseous mass. 



The sacs of Rainey, or, as they are also termed, " psorospermiae," 

 are elongated granulous bodies, like the trichinae, situated within 

 the sarcolemma of the fiber. Their true nature or pathological im- 

 portance is not yet "well determined. 



Some valuable diagnostic 

 points are, that in the latter — 

 trichinae — the striation of the 

 fiber is entirely destroyed with- 

 in the capsule, while by psoro- 

 sperms it is retained, limiting 

 the objects laterally, and con- 

 tinuing directly from their ex- 

 tremities. 



Bruch,Yirchow, and Leuck- 

 art have described peculiar 

 roundish or oval objects of a 

 whitish color, having varying 



dimensions, which sometimes appear in the flesh of hams, and which 

 have been demonstrated to consist of agglomerates of needle-like 

 crystals. They fill the fiber to a variable degree without otherwise 

 disturbing its contents, and disappear upon the addition of muriatic 

 acid, the normal striation again becoming visible. 



Teichiniasis est Man. 



It is not my purpose to write an essay on the pathology of 

 trichiniasis, either in man or animals, but to give the necessary 

 natural historical facts of its life, and to illustrate its prevalence, 

 with short notices of the phenomena of the disease in the above 

 species. Treatment being so unsuccessful, it would be folly to notice 

 it, and it also belongs more to works on medicine than in an essay 

 on hygiene, or a contribution to preventive medicine. 



It has been previously mentioned that the honor of confirming 

 the causal nexus between trichinae in pork and in man belongs to 

 Dr. Zenker of Dresden, Germany. This was in the case of a ser- 

 vant-girl, admitted to the city hospital at Dresden, as a typhus 

 patient. She died, her muscles being found completely infected 

 with trichinae. At the same time that she became ill, other per- 

 sons of the same family, and the butcher that slaughtered a hog 

 for them, were ill also, but in a modified form. An examina- 



