PARASITES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 197 



Cobbold's extract from the Leipziger Zeitung for December 

 8, 1863, in which it is stated that six persons were seized 

 with all the symptoms of trichina disease, " after eating raw 

 beef mixed with chopped pork." The Neue Hannoverschc 



FIG. 25. Trichina (male), magnified. 



Zcitung for December 13 of the same year, chronicles the 

 death of twenty-one persons in Hettstadt through eating the 

 flesh of an English pig, the butcher himself perishing from 

 the trichina disease. Eighty persons, according to the 

 Zcitung filr Norddeutschland. were affected in December, 

 1863, in Plauen, but only one died. In 1862, of thirty-eight 

 persons attacked in Calhe, near Magdeburg, eight died; 

 and in Hettstadt twenty died out of a total of 135 who were 

 attacked. 



The symptoms exhibited by the patients were those 

 of an acute fever, accompanied by distressing pains in 

 the muscles. The discovery of the trichina's fatal powers, 

 as might be expected, caused no little consternation, but 

 we are not aware that the affection of our Continental neigh- 

 bours for raw meat declined in consequence. If one narra- 

 tive, indeed, is to be trusted, there were not wanting, it 

 seems, those who affected an entire disbelief in the trichina 

 and in the fatal effects it was capable of inducing. One 

 headstrong savant was thus said to have fallen a victim to 

 his scepticism. Holding in his hand a piece of sausage, 

 which he alleged had been declared to contain trichinae, he 

 avowed his entire disbelief in the fatal effects which were 

 said to follow the introduction of those parasites within the 

 human economy. He would, in fact, have no objection, 

 for that matter, to eat the sausage. " Eat ! eat ! " was the 

 cry which resounded through the hall, and in compliance 

 with the request, the savant ate the sausage. Lamentable 

 to relate, the trichinae proved too much for even a scientific 

 organisation, and the subject of the experiment was said to 



