PARASITES OF ANIMALS. 115 © 
In some very severe cases the numbers contained in human 
bodies have been estimated, by reliable authorities, as. 
high as forty and sixty millions. 
The cysts containing Trichine were first observed in human 
muscles in 1822, but the worms from similar cysts were first 
named and described by Owen, in 1835, but were only regarded 
as anatomical curiosities of no practical importance, until 1860, 
when Zenker proved that they are capable of producing the 
severe and often fatal disease now well known under the name 
of Trichiniasis, but which had been previously (as it often is 
still) confounded with typhoid fever, inflammatory rheuma- 
tism or rheumatic fever, poisoning, and various other 
diseases. 
Symptoms and treatment of the disease. 
The disease caused by this parasite has three more or less 
distinct phases : 
First. While the mature worms and young remain in the 
intestine, and while passing through its walls. In this stage 
the symptoms are derangement and inflammation of the in- 
testine, often resulting in severe diarrhoea, nausea and vomit- 
ing, swelling and pain, and sometimes peritonitis, due to the 
perforations of the intestinal walls. These symptoms ensue 
in two or three days after swallowing the trichinous flesh, and 
may lastafortnightor more. Animals experimented upon often 
die in this stage. Purgatives and anthelmintics are used in 
this stage to expel the mature and pregnant females, but after 
three or four weeks have passed this will be useless. Castor- 
oil and calomel have been used with success for this purpose. 
Second. While the young worms are migrating and work- 
ing in the muscles, a variety of symptoms are developed, 
varying in different persons, and depending, also, upon the 
number of worms. This stage commences in ten to fourteen 
days, and generally lasts four or five weeks. The principal 
symptoms are lassitude and swelling of the muscles, with 
soreness, or intolerable pains, resembling rheumatic pains but 
not affecting the joints; profuse sweating sometimes occurs ; 
the pulse is very rapid, but the heat of the body is usually 
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