114 STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. [Jan. 



could certainly be more readily inquired into than in the case 

 of Western hogs. The principal difficulty in the way of this 

 plan was the limited number which one was likely to get for 

 examination. It was also thought l)est to continue the ex- 

 amination for a number of years, so that the results should 

 not be influenced by any possible yearly fluctuations in the 

 prevalence of the trouble. 



The examinations had not progressed very far before it 

 became evident that there was a degree of infection in the 

 hogs raised near Boston which considerably exceeded any- 

 thing hitherto known. At the same time my attention was 

 naturally directed to the nature of the feed w^hich they 

 received. I soon learned by inquiry that many of the raisers 

 fed their hogs largely on city ofial. I hoped that the material 

 which came to me for examination would embrace many 

 raisers who did not, as well as many who did, feed city oflTal ; 

 and that it would be possible, by a comparison of the results 

 in the two classes of cases, to arrive at a definite opinion as 

 to whether the offal was or was not responsible for the large 

 proportion of trichinous hogs. In this I have been disap- 

 pointed, inasmuch as nearly all the raisers — 51 out of 56 

 — whose hogs I have examined to the number of fifteen or 

 more have made use of offal. While this prevents the pres- 

 entation of comparative statistics which would be of value, 

 it in no way diminishes my apprehension that city offal may 

 be largely responsible for the prevalence of trichinae here. 

 At least, I shall not be satisfied that city offal is free from 

 danger until it has been established by suitable experiments 

 that the proportion of trichinous hogs cannot be reduced by 

 wholly excluding it from their feed. 



In the supplement to the first annual report of the State 

 Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity of Massachusetts 

 (1879, page 38) were published the results of the exami- 

 nations for triohinse in swine, made by Dr. F. S. Billings, 

 V. S. Out of the 2,701 hogs examined, 154 were trich- 

 inous, the ratio of trichinous to non-trichinous hogs being 

 1:17.54; stated in another form, about 5.7 per cent, were 

 trichinous. Of these, only 12 were raised in the vicinity 

 of Boston. In the third annual report of the State Board 

 of Health, Lunacy and Charity (page xlvi) the results of 



