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SWIFT, JOSEPH G. 



SWIFT, brevet Brig.-Gen. JOSEPH GAEDISER, 

 an American general, and civil and military 

 engineer, born in Nan tucket, Mass., December 

 81, 1783 ; died at Geneva, N. Y., July 23, 1865. 

 Gen. Swift was the son of Dr. Foster Swift, 

 a surgeon in the army, who died at New Lon- 

 don, Conn., in 1835. He entered the army as 

 a cadet at Newport, R. I., in 1800, and two 

 years later became the first graduate of the 

 Military Academy at West Point. He was then 

 appointed second lieutenant in the U. S. corps 

 of military engineers, and in 1807, having at- 

 tained the rank of captain of engineers, he 

 was appointed to the command of West Point. 

 In February, 1812, he was chosen military agent 

 for Fort Johnson, and succeeded to the rank of 

 colonel and principal engineer the following 

 summer. In 1812-'13 he was chief engineer in 

 planning the defences of New York harbor, 

 and of the army in the campaign of 1813 on the 

 St. Lawrence River. February 19, 1814, he was 

 brevetted brigadier-General for " meritorious 

 services," and appointed Superintendent of the 

 Military Academy November 16, 1814, holding 

 that position only to the following January. 

 He resigned November 12, 1818, and held the 

 appointment of U. S. Surveyor of the port of 

 New York from that year to 1827. From 1829 

 to 1845 he was a civil engineer in the United 

 States service, superintending the harbor im- 

 provements on the lakes, and removed to Geneva, 

 N. Y., where he resided until his death. In the 

 winter of 1830-'31 he constructed the railroad 

 from New Orleans to Lake Pontchartrain, 

 through an almost impenetrable swamp, sus- 

 ceptible of neither draining nor piling, being, it 

 is believed, the first railroad in the United 

 States provided with an iron T rail. In 1838 

 Gen. Swift was chief engineer pf the Harlem 

 Railroad in New York, and in 1841 was honored 

 by President Harrison with a mission to the 

 British Provinces, with reference to a treaty of 

 peace with Great Britain. In 1851 and 1852, 

 with his son, McRay Swift, he made the tour 

 of Europe. He has contributed many valuable 

 papers to scientific journals on the exact and 

 natural sciences and their practical appli- 

 cations. 



SWINE, DISEASE OP (TRICHINOSIS or TRI- 

 CHINIASIS), a disease produced in swine by a 

 parasite which infests their muscular tissues, 

 and which may produce in the human subject 

 who has partaken of the diseased flesh serious 

 disease, and in some cases death. This parasite, 

 Trichina spiralis, is not the only one which in- 

 fests the intestines or flesh of the swine. The 

 measles in pork are produced by the presence 

 of the Tcenia solium or tape-worm in its en- 

 cysted stage. This measly pork being eaten by 

 man, the encysted scolex or head set free at- 

 taches itself to the human intestines, and de- 

 velopes into that terrible pest, the tape-worm. 

 Joints or sections of this passing from the bowels 

 aro eaten by swine, and thus reproduce the par- 

 asite. 



The Trichina spiralis does not belong to this 



SWINE, DISEASE OF. 



highly organized and complex order of cestoidea 

 or encysted worms, but to the lower and sim- 

 pler order Nematoidea or round worms, of 

 which the ascarides or pin-worrns, and the 

 oxyurides, are familiar examples. Trichinous 

 pork contains the young worms either free or 

 coiled up and enclosed in capsules within the 

 muscular tissue, according to the length of time 

 they have remained there. In shape they re- 

 semble the adult, but are smaller and sexually 

 immature. Unless previously destroyed by 

 cooking or other process, when the muscle con- 

 taining the encysted worms is eaten, they pass 

 the stomach uninjured and escape from their 

 capsules if encysted by the digestion of the cyst. 

 In the intestinal canal they grow rapidly, and 

 become mature in a few days. Impregnation 

 immediately follows, and the young begin to 

 leave the female within a week, in the form of 

 minute transparent worms. They may con- 

 tinue to escape for weeks, and in immense num- 

 bers. They bore at once into the intestinal 

 cells, and penetrate to nearly all parts of the 

 muscular system. They feed upon the muscu- 

 lar tissue, and after an indefinite period coil 

 themselves up and are enclosed in a sac, which 

 in time becomes cretaceous. In this quiescent 

 stage they may remain alive for years, and after 

 the death of their host may become mature in 

 turn by entering the intestinal canal of some 

 other animal. 



The symptoms caused by their presence vary 

 according to the number eaten and the stage of 

 development. At first nausea, loss of appetite, 

 and intestinal irritation. Afterwards debility, 

 fever, oedema of the face, movements of limbs, 

 pain, and sensitiveness of muscles on pres- 

 sure. Lastly, great inflammation of intestines, 

 with bloody stools, increased muscular pains, 

 partial paralysis of muscles of deglutition, 

 speech, and respiration, and finally death from 

 exhaustion. If only a small quantity of the 

 trichinous pork be eaten, the symptoms will be 

 mild, and in all cases they will disappear when 

 the worms have become quiescent or encysted 

 in the muscular tissue. 



The capsule, sac, or cyst, which encloses the 

 trichina in the muscle, varies in size. The 

 largest are about ^th of an inch long and -j-^th 

 of an inch broad ; it tapers at each end, and is 

 usually, though not always, prolonged at each 

 extremity into a very line thread-like append- 

 age. The fully developed trichina is a round 

 worm ^th of an inch in length, and ^-J-jth of 

 an inch in thickness, and is usually found coiled 

 upon itself. The young, which penetrate the 

 intestines and seek their feeding-ground in the 

 muscles, are much smaller, but very active. 

 The number of these animals is sometimes 

 astonishing. In a cubic inch of ham the num- 

 ber has been estimated at 85,000. We give 

 below (Fig. 1) a section of muscular tissue with 

 trichinae encapsuled, as seen by the naked eye ; 

 and (Fig. 2) a portion of the same with the en- 

 capsuled trichinro magnified fifty diameters. 



The female brings forth from sixty to one 



