CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 281 



to our notice it is equally true that uot all the cases reported as trichi- 

 niasis were really due to trichiuse. 



In the debate which occurred in the French Senate June 20, 1882, M« 

 Festeliu referred to seven epidemics produced by American pork.* One 

 of these so-called epidemics consisted of a single case of the disease which 

 occurred in New York. Another was the disease on the English ship 

 Cornwall, which was at first supposed to be typhoid fever, and was only 

 decided to be trichiniasis when a body was exhumed two months after 

 burial, and worms, which the examining physician took to be trichinae? 

 were found in the muscles. But we have it on the very best authority 

 that these worms were not trichinae, and there is no evidence even that 

 they caused the disease. The most i>robable theory is that they gained 

 access, to the body after burial. Xo trichinaj or other parasites were 

 found in the American meat consumed on this vessel. 



Another epidemic he referred to as having occurred at Bremen, in 

 which forty persons became diseased from eating an American ham. 

 M. Chatiu has mentioned this outbreak again and again, and insists that 

 it is a demonstration of the dangerous character of American meats. 

 The charge was so serious that it has been investigated as carefully as 

 possible. M. Testelin does not give the authority who is responsible 

 for this statement, nor does he so much as say in what year the outbreak 

 occurred. M. Chatin is more definite, however, and says the disease 

 was observed in 1875.t He refers to the Traits dliygiene imhlique et 

 privee, by Proust, published in 1877, as his authority for asserting that 

 forty persons were affected at this place as the result of eating an Ameri- 

 can ham. By consulting the yearly health report of Bremen for 1875 

 we find that no cases of trichiniasis in man are recorded during that 

 year. There is simply a statement that two trichiuous hogs (native 

 animals) were discovered near Bremen. The outbreak of trichiniasis 

 referred to by Testelin and Chatin seems to have been one thatoccurred at 

 Hastedt, near Bremen in 1874, during which forty-two persons suffered, 

 but all recovered. This epidemic was first announced August 15, and 

 was caused by eating the flesh of a hog that had been slaughtered July 

 31. The diagnosis was confirmed by microscopic examination of a piece 

 of muscle from one of the sufferers.^ There had been a habit here, as 

 in most other parts of Germany, of attributing all cases of this disease to 

 American pork without investigation, and this may have been the origin 

 of the story so industriously circulated by M. Chatin. At all events, 

 this is the only extensive epidemic of trichiniasis which is recorded as 

 occurring at or in the vicinity of Bremen from 1873 to 1877, inclusive, 

 and there is no question but that this was caused by a native animal. 



One of the other epidemics referred to occurred in Madrid, and an- 



* Chatin, La Tricliine, «fec., p. 210. 

 t Chatin, La Trichiiu-, &c., p. 1G5. 



X Dritter Jahresbericht iiber deu oft'. Gesuudheitszustaud, iVc. in Hieiiieii, in Jaliie 

 1874. 



