Parasites of Muscular arid Connective Tissue. 429 



and changing position, the body but especially the hind limbs are 

 stiff, rigid and it may be hard to the touch, and the movements 

 are hesitating, dragging and uncertain with an appearance of 

 paraplegia. The abdomen may be less tender, but the muscles 

 become distinctly so to the touch, and there may be pruritus 

 especially if the panniculus is infested (Roll). The voice may 

 become hoarse or husky, mastication and deglutition are difficult, 

 the jaws may be fixed (trismus) and even the movements of the 

 lips and tongue may be impaired. The pig plunges its snout 

 deeply in its liquid food and takes it in with effort, and in small 

 amount only. Breathing is often hurried and panting. Faeces 

 may be passed involuntarily. Redness of the eyes, often present 

 at first, tends to disappear, and oedema of the lids is rarely present, 

 but there may be some infiltration and thickening of the cheeks, 

 lips, throat, shoulders, fore limbs and sheath. This is usually 

 seen in the worst cases only, associated with much weakness and 

 presages an early death. 



In the great majority of cases recovery takes place, but conva- 

 lescence is liable to be slow, and the pig remains weak in its mus- 

 cles, unsteady in its motions and somewhat paretic owing to the 

 extensive destruction of the muscular tissue. This does not, 

 however, as a rule, interfere with fattening, which seems even to 

 be favored in certain cases, by the lazy, inactive habits of the 

 animal, associated as they are with good appetite and digestion. 



Diagnosis is difficult, and the disease is largely confounded 

 with indigestions, diarrhoea, hog cholera, gastro-intestinal poisons, 

 rheumatism, stephanurus dentatus, and nervous affections. It is 

 to be identified mainly by the history showing that the swine 

 have access to rats, mice, raw pork, or the washings of the same, 

 the faeces of man or hog or the drainage from the same, that a 

 number have been attacked at once without any special exposure, 

 poisons in food or other appreciable cause, that there have been 

 the earlier intestinal symptoms with diarrhoea, followed by the 

 secondary muscular symptoms, that the rheumatoid symptoms 

 are confined to the muscles, while the joints are respected, and 

 that trichina can be found (though often with difficulty) in the 

 liquid faeces. The final test is by microscopic examination of the 

 muscles in the second stage of the disease. This is done by 

 harpooning or by antiseptic incision and removal of a small 



