NEMATODA 163 



it is easy to perceive that although, in the majority of instances, 

 Trichiniasis does not cause death, yet the percentage of fatal 

 cases is by no means insignificant. 



The notion that particular breeds of swine are more liable to 

 be infested than others is absurd, since infection must be due 

 to the facilities offered for swallowing garbage, especially dead 

 rats. According to Drs Belfield and Atwood 8 per cent, of 

 slaughtered American swine contain Trichinae. In infested 

 hogs they found from 35 to 13,000 parasites in a cubic inch of 

 muscle, and by repeated feedings they succeeded in rearing 

 about 100,000 Trichinae in the body of a rat. 



In regard to the disease in man let us glance at the 

 phenomena that presented themselves in Plauen, a town of 

 Central Saxony. Drs Bohler and Konigsdorffer, who first 

 saw this disease and treated it, state, according to Leuc- 

 kart, that "the affection began with a sense of prostration, 

 attended with extreme painfulness of the limbs, and, after 

 these symptoms had lasted several days, an enormous swelling 

 of the face very suddenly supervened. The pain occasioned by 

 this swelling and the fever troubled the patients night and day. 

 In serious cases the patients could not voluntarily extend their 

 limbs, nor at any time without pain. They lay mostly with 

 their arms and legs half bent heavily, as it were, and almost 

 motionless, like a log. Afterwards, in the more serious cases, 

 during the second and third week, an extremely painful and 

 general swelling of the body took place ; yet, although the fifth 

 part of all the patients were numbered amongst the serious 

 cases, only one died." 



Satisfactory as it may be to note the numerous recoveries 

 which take place, this circumstance is very much marred by 

 the fact that a large proportion of the patients suffer the most 

 excruciating agony. In the main it will be observed that 

 Bohler's and Konigsdorffer's experience, as recorded by 

 Leuckart, corresponds very closely with that given by other 

 observers. The symptoms, moreover, are very similar to those 

 produced in the original case published by Zenker. In this case, 

 which occurred in the Dresden Hospital (1860), the patient was 

 a servant girl, aged twenty, and the principal symptoms were 

 loss of appetite, prostration, violent pains, contraction of the 

 limbs, and finally oedema, which, in association, perhaps, wibh a 

 certain amount of pneumonia, terminated her career within a 

 period of thirty days. The post-mortem appearances showed 



