No. 4.] REPORT OF CATTLE BUREAU. 309 



has disinfected the pens, permission being given to kill 

 apparently healthy marketable pigs, subject to slaughter- 

 house inspection. 



A reported outbreak of hog cholera in Stockbridge upon 

 two farms seems to have been a pneumonia due to the swine 

 being kept in cold, exposed pens as winter approached, 

 w^hich subsided, with the loss of only a few small pigs, after 

 the animals had been transferred to warmer, more comfort- 

 able quarters. 



Considering: the manner in which swine are fed and cared 

 for, the only wonder is that there is so little sickness and 

 disease reported. 



In connection with the diseases of swine, some cases of 

 trichinosis among people may be mentioned in this portion 

 of the report. 



Last winter in Springfield there were 7 people taken ill 

 through eating pork which was insufSciently cooked, in- 

 fected with trichinae. The trichinte are small, spiral worms, 

 known as trichina spiralis, sometimes found in the muscle 

 fibres of pork. It does not take a very high degree of tem- 

 perature to kill them ; it is said that they die at 130° or 

 140° F. 



Trichinosis is a rare disease in this part of the world, as 

 most people cook their pork sufficiently to kill these para- 

 sites. In the case mentioned the victims were Italians. 

 The pig from which the infected pork came was one that 

 was killed in Ao;awam. An agent of the Cattle Bureau in- 

 vestigated the matter, and found that the infected pig had 

 been kept on the premises of an Italian in Agawam where 

 there were 39 other swine. The inspector of animals for 

 Agawam quarantined all the friends and relations of the 

 dead pig, sending a duplicate notice to the office of the 

 Cattle Bureau. As trichinosis in swine is not one of 

 the diseases specified as contagious in section 28 of chap- 

 ter 90 of the Revised Laws, and as the quarantined swine 

 showed no evidence of disease, it was not thought neces- 

 sary to continue the fiuarantine, and a release was sent to 

 the owner. 



An outbreak of a disease of this kind is one that empha- 



