680 THE ANIMAL PARASITES OF MAN 



the large intestine, had unquestionably some effect in certain cases, 

 such as those of Girard, Poledne, Hausmann, Kahane and Schiller. 

 The local treatment of the large bowel is most effectual when high in- 

 jections of water and benzine are given. Becker 1 obviously used too 

 much benzine (i dessert-spoonful to i litre of water), for severe 

 irritation was set up, whilst Peiper 2 used only a few drops of benzine, 

 5 drops to i litre of water being enough (Schiller). Instead of 

 benzine enemata, garlic, i per cent, thymol solution, and physiological 

 saline injections have been used, but the benzine enemata seem to be 

 far and away the most effective. In Schiller's case 2,000 worms came 

 away on the first day as the result of such a combined treatment 

 (thymol internally and benzine enemata). 



Trichinella spiralis. 



Trichinosis is, happily, becoming so much rarer that many 

 doctors get no opportunity, either in their student days or in private 

 practice, of seeing this severe disease ; we ourselves remember having 

 observed one typical case of a peasant, aged 17, from Metz in Med.- 

 Rat Merkel's clinic in Nuremberg in the year 1879. In the description 

 of the disease we follow Merkel's 3 observations. 



The eating of flesh containing Trichinae is often followed, if not 

 invariably so, by gastric disturbances of different kinds, especially by 

 vomiting and diarrhoea, with colic, great muscular fatigue, oedema 

 of the eyelids, muscular swellings with hardness and extreme painful- 

 ness, disturbance of ocular movements, of deglutition and of breathing, 

 hoarseness, aphonia, intestinal haemorrhage, bleeding of the nose, 

 ecchymosisof the skin and mucosae, prurigo, herpes, miliaria, pustules, 

 boils, severe sweating, cedema of the extremities, and, finally, 

 desquamation of the skin ; more rarely there is considerable 

 decubitus, bronchial catarrh, hypostatic and catarrhal pneumonia, 

 with dry and purulent pleurisy, and in severe cases symptoms of 

 collapse with delirium close the scene. Slight cases last from three 

 to six weeks, severe ones for several months, and in the latter 

 convalescence is very slow. It is remarkable that in cases of 

 trichinosis of long duration, cancer of the breast was observed at 

 the same time (Klopsch, 4 Langenbeck, 5 Babes 6 ). Death during 

 epidemics occurred in 30 per cent, of all cases. The disease begins 



1 Becker, Deulsch. med. Wochenschr., 1902. 



Peiper, quoted by Seifert, loc. cit., p. 248. 



3 Merkel, " Handb. d. Therap. v. Pentzoldt-Stintzing," i. 



* Klopsch, quoted by Babes. 



5 Langenbeck, ibid. 



6 Babes, Centralbl.f. Bakt., 1906, xlii. 



