1881.] 



MICKOSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



45 



companies the report, that of 2,701 

 swine examined, 154 were infected 

 with Trichinae, or one out of every 

 17.54. Of 89 freshly pickled tongues, 

 3 were trichinous, but in these the 

 worms were all dead. Health Com- 

 missioner De Wolf, of Chicago, found 

 8 out of 100 swine trichinous. — Ed.] 

 According to the statistics with re- 

 ference to trichiniasis among swine, 

 it is evident that there is an enor- 

 mously greater percentage of trichina- 

 infected swine in this country than 

 in Germany, if their statistics can be 

 relied upon. It should be remarked, 

 however, that our investigations were 

 made with very great thoroughness, 

 and that those portions of the swine 

 were examined in which trichinae are 

 most commonly found. It has been 

 ascertained, too, in Germany, that 

 the percentage of hogs reported tri- 

 chinous is increasing in that country 

 {^Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur off. 

 Gesundheitspflege, Vol. V, p. 638). 



Fig. 13. — Trichina-capsules, with calcified 

 and disintegrated capsules. (Leuckart.) 



There is no doubt that the greater 

 part of the swine which I examined 

 were from the West ; yet no one well 

 acquainted with the circumstances 

 would, I think, assert that the general 

 hygienic conditions under which our 

 Western swine are raised are not 

 superior to those of the famed " home- 

 fed porkers " of the small New- Eng- 

 land farmer, raised, as they are in 

 only too many instances, in dark, 

 loathsome, poorly-ventilated pens, 

 only too frequently under stables, 

 with the house-vaults and sink-drains 

 emptying into them. Again, whoever 

 has been upon a tour of observation 

 among the agricultural districts of 



Germany must have been most forci- 

 bly struck with the absurd non-hy- 

 gienic conditions under which not 

 only hogs, but the majority of the 

 domestic animals, are raised and 

 surrounded, in comparison with those 

 of our own country, especially of the 

 great stock-raising West. 



With reference to the disease itself 

 among swine, I have taken the fol- 

 lowing from the Magazin fur die 

 gesatnmte Thierheilkiinde" Vol. 

 XXXI, p. 6 ; being a report written 

 by Professor Muller of the Royal 

 Veterinary Institute at Berlin, with 

 reference to the results of a long- 

 continued series of feeding-experi- 

 ments with trichinous pork upon 

 swine themselves. These experiments 

 have demonstrated the fact that the 

 consumption of trichinous flesh by 

 swine, with the consequent develop- 

 ment of the embryos in their intes- 

 tines, and their migration and lodge- 

 ment in the muscles, may indeed 

 cause disease, but the symptoms of 

 the same have neither that constancy 

 nor character which will admit of 

 their being considered as peculiar 

 to this disease alone, during the life 

 of swine so infected. All the swine 

 which were fed with the trichinous 

 flesh became ill within a few days 

 after its consumption. The most 

 constant phenomena presented were 

 as follows : diarrhoea, not constant, 

 but interrupted frequently by the 

 passage of more solid faeces ; appetite 

 irregular, sometimes more, sometimes 

 less, sometimes entirely wanting ; 

 indications of abdominal pains ; tur- 

 gidity of the lining membrane of the 

 eyelids. 



These symptoms, either singly or 

 collectively, may appear in swine, or 

 any other animal, entirely aside from 

 any trichina-infection : most of them 

 are simply evidence of the irritation 

 caused by the parasites in the intes- 

 tinal canal. Hence swine dying or 

 killed at this stage of the invasion 

 would present the same pathological 

 phenomena as those suffering from 

 an intestinal catarrh of like grade. 



