118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



In New York City, January, 1869, eight cases occurred in 

 a boarding-house in Carlisle Street, from eating sausages. 

 Two of the victims died in the New York Hospital, and others 

 were dangerously sick. It is a significant fact that the physi- 

 cians in two hospitals mistook these cases at first for typhoid 

 fever, and only discovered the mistake after one death had 

 occurred. 



In Bridgeport, Conn., January 30th, 1870, raw smoked 

 ham was eaten by five persons. Of these Mrs. Koch died of 

 acute Trichiiiiasis, February 15th ; Mrs. Winter died February 

 16th ; Mr. Winter died March 1st ; a daughter of Mrs. Koch, 

 aged two and a half years, died March 7th. Mr. Strasburg 

 was for a long time very dangerously ill, and was left in a very 

 feeble condition. Another person who ate some of the same 

 ham fried, escaped entirely. Mr. Winter thought himself not 

 seriously ill when his wife died. Some portions of his pec- 

 toral muscles, which I have had an opportunity to examine, 

 were filled with Trichincs, not yet encysted. There were 

 perhaps 100,000 to the cubic inch. 



Prevention. 



Experiments have fully shown that nothing less than the 

 most thorough cooking, so prolonged as to destroy all redness 

 of the juices even in the interior of the meat, is capable of 

 destroying these parasites and rendering pork a safe article 

 of food. Cases, some of them fatal, have occurred from eat- 

 ing ordinary fried sausages, roast pork, and pork that had 

 boiled two hours. But the majority of severe and fatal cases 

 have happened from eating smoked ham, raw or partly cooked, 

 and various kinds of smoked and dried sausages, which are 

 often eaten raw, or but slightly cooked. 



Therefore, if people will eat pork at all, they should make 

 it a fixed rule never to eat it unless thoroughly cooked, if 

 they would avoid one of the most painful and dangerous dis- 

 eases known. 



There appears to be no certain way of preventing the 

 disease in hogs, for it is probable that in most cases they get 

 it by eating rats or mice, which are often full of Trichince, 

 but it is quite probable that they may often be infected by 



