772 



SWINE, DISEASE OF. 



in Hedersleben is similar to several epidemics, or 

 groups of cases of the disease, which have oc- 

 curred since the year 1859. They arise from 

 the penetration into, and lodgment in, various 

 parts of the living human body, particularly 

 the muscles, of the young trichinae. 



The history of the investigations of the last 

 ten years, of the life of the animal, and the char- 

 acteristics of its career, comprises the accounts of 

 a number of observers who undertook to ascer- 

 tain both its natural history and the conse- 

 quences of its becoming an inmate of the hu- 

 man body. In 1860 Prof. Virchow, of Berlin, 

 conducted a series of experiments with the 

 trichinae (consisting of feeding the meat which 

 contained them to certain animals, under care- 

 ful observation), by which he acquired all that 

 we know of the mode and consequences of 

 their introduction into the living body. The 

 infestation of the human body has as yet only 

 been found to occur from eating the flesh of the 

 pig. But the trichinae have been found in other 

 animals usually regarded as strictly herbivorous, 

 as moles, etc. Special investigations have, 

 however, proved that these animals consume 

 smaller animals, as field-mice, ground-worms, 

 etc., and hence are flesh-eaters being in this 

 respect like rats, mice, etc. Other animals, 

 such as rabbits, may be infested by feeding 

 them the flesh containing trichina?, but -never- 

 theless the only flesh man consumes which con- 

 tains the trichina?, in the order of nature, is 

 that of the pig. 



In the year 1863 there was a wide-spread 

 fear, derived from the opinion of various writ- 

 ers, that the meat of plant-feeding animals may 

 contain the trichinae, and the authorities of 

 Merse announced that beef was not exempt 

 from trichinae, but as yet it is doubtful if trichi- 

 na have ever been observed in beef; and even if, 

 as supposed, the trichinae disease was contracted 

 from eating it, if it was obtained from the same 

 butcher who sold pork containing trichinae, it 

 must be ascertained whether the beef had not 

 become infested by lying in contact with the 

 purk. So far as scientific investigation teaches 

 us, neither in beef nor mutton have trichinae 

 ieen found. 



From the fact that small, round worms, sim- 

 ilar to trichinae, exist in the muscles of the eel 

 and frog, various authors have supposed them 

 to be far more general in their distribution than 

 Virchow and Leuckhardt assert. The rain- 

 worm was asserted by Laugenbach to contain 

 trichinae, and the pig was supposed to become 

 infested from devouring these ; but careful in- 

 vestigation showed that the microscopic worm 

 which infested the ground-worm was that long 

 known as Acnris minutissima. Again, Schachte 

 has stated that some vegetables, and especially 

 the root of the sugar-beet, contained trichinae, 

 but although oxen fed upon bad beets have 

 sickened and died in numbers, the trichinae 

 have never been found in their flesh, as before 

 stated. We repeat that, BO far as ascertained, 

 the pig's flesh is the only flesh man consumes 



which contains trichinae. How, then, does the 

 pig become infested? The supposition that 

 they have their genesis in his body, and aro 

 not taken in his food, is totally inadmissible. 

 Kesearches show that there is every probability 

 that the pig neither derives the trichinae from 

 the animals nor vegetables he devours, but 

 from the fascal matters he consumes. Hence, 

 it is probable that at all times particular, indi- 

 vidual pigs have been affected, and that refuse 

 matter from the bowels of whoever may have 

 consumed his flesh may have been consumed by 

 other pigs, and the disease thus spread and in- 

 volved a large number of people. Most of the 

 epidemics of trichina? disease have occurred hi 

 Saxony, where the pigs are fed in styes. It is 

 very probable that pigs may infect pigs, for the 

 contents of the intestines of one which contains 

 pregnant trichina? may be eaten when expelled 

 by another pig. We may consider it estab- 

 lished, therefore, that, in the common course 

 of affairs, trichina? can only be found in the 

 carnivora. For we have seen that the intesti- 

 nal trichinae produce living young which mi- 

 grate into the flesh and then attain their fur- 

 ther development. They cannot leave the meat 

 in any other way than after it has been eaten, 

 and this regular progression from the in- 

 testine into the muscles, and from the muscles 

 into the intestine, is only possible in meat- 

 eaters. This order of the infestation may be 

 here stated under three cardinal points : 



1. The eaten trichinae remain in the intes- 

 tines unless expelled by purgation, and never 

 enter the muscles. 



2. They produce living young, which enter 

 the muscles. 



3. The young which have entered the mus- 

 cles grow there, -but do not multiply. 



The chances of injury to the meat-eater are 

 in proportion to the number which enter the 

 intestines, and the danger is in the production 

 of young by the intestinal trichina?. 



Kecently, Dr. Perry, a physician of Brook- 

 lyn, L. I., who has been engaged for some 

 years in sanitary investigations, stated to the 

 Metropolitan Board of Health of New York 

 that trichinae have been found in the beef of 

 the cows fed on swill at the distillery stables 

 on Long Island. He states that the pigs fed on 

 the swill and kept in filthy styes are largely 

 trichinous, and that the rats which are very 

 numerous in these stables and styes become 

 filled with trichinae ; the cows devour the ex- 

 cretions of the rats with the swill, and thus 

 take the disease. This seems reasonable, and 

 it is not impossible that, though ordinarily 

 graminivorous animals are not subject to the 

 disease, these swill- fed cows may be exceptions. 



The first cases of death from trichiniasis, of 

 which we have positive proof, though doubtless 

 thousands may have occurred before attention 

 was called to it, took place in 1815. The his- 

 tory of these cases is curious and interesting. 

 In the summer of 1863 an elderly person was 

 being operated on for a tumor of the neck by a 



