Trichina, 409 



Treatment. — The treatment recommended is, to place the 

 animal in a cool, clean, well ventilated stye, with plenty of 

 fresh water for him to drink and bathe in. For a medicine, 



No. 454. Flour of sulphur. ^ oz. 



•Nitrate of potash, 1 draclim. 



Give in a bran mash, twice a day. 



His skin should be cleaned with soap and water, and the 

 sores dressed with tar ointment. 



TRICHINOSIS. 



The Trichina spiralis is a minute parasite that infests the 

 flesh of several animals, especially the hog ; and as it is very 

 tenacious of life, it is, from eating pork, occasionally trans- 

 ferred to man, in whom it j^roduces serious and sometimes 

 fatal illness. 



The trichina is said to be not uncommon in American 

 pork, and in several European markets our exportations of 

 this staple have met with less favor on this account; but the 

 facts are that German pork is quite as much infected as our 

 own. 



The trichina is believed to inhabit the body of animals at 

 all stages of its existence ; and hence swine fed exclusively 

 on vegetable diet are not liable to them ; while, on the other 

 hand, those permitted to eat the offiil from slaughter houses, 

 carron, rats, mice and decaying animal matter generally, are 

 usually more or less infected with trichina, and form a dan- 

 gerous article of food for the table. 



The trichina is exceedingly small, about the twelfth or 

 fifteenth of an inch in length, and in its miniature state lives 

 in minute cysts in the muscles. They increase with amazing 

 rapidity, several hundred thousand congregating in an ounce 

 of flesh ; and when thus numerous, they give rise in man to 

 symptoms closely resembling those of t}^phoid fever. The 

 mature worm escapes into the intestine, where they pair, tha 



