The Natural History of Parasites. 
609 
neighbourliood. The case excited much attention, both from the 
extraordinary symptoms — the excruciating pains and cramp — which 
accompanied the malady, and also from the results of the post-mortem 
examination, when both in the bowels and in all the muscles (even 
those of the heart) worms were found not only impregnated, but 
teeming with young. 
Professor Zeuter, who had attended the patient, on inquiring at the 
farm of her master, ascertained that a pig had been killed on the 21st 
of December, and shortly after the maid had begun to be ailing ; and 
that on the 12th of January she was taken into the hospital, where, 
on the 27th, she died. 
" A direct statement as to how much raw meat she might have 
appropriated, could not be got at." 
There were still remains of this pig in the house, and on the first 
experiment made on the ham, very many TricMncB were discovered 
in their usual fonn. Sausages made from the brain and the blood 
exhibited the same results ; it was evident that the girl had died from 
eating this meat. 
The farmer, his wife, and other members of the family had all been 
affected with more or less violent symptoms of diarrhoea after this pig 
was killed*; the butcher had suifered most, having had a violent pain 
in his limbs, besides the other symptoms. 
1. The Trichina in man is thus traced to the flesh of swine, and does 
not originate in the dog, as Leukhaii; supposed. It is further evident 
that the Trichina completes the whole circle of its existence in one 
habitat, though fiu'ther experiments are required to show whether this 
is always the case. Leukhart reared TrichincB in the bowels of a dog 
and developed them in swine, which in consequence became diseased. 
The pig may very well pick up impregnated worms from the dog's ex- 
creta. Thus the mischief may easily be propagated through the whole 
stock, and may slowly and steadily increase, the danger augmenting 
with the number of the worms. The Trichina is no offshoot of another 
worm (of the Tricocephalus as it was once supposed). 
2. The Trichince contained in the flesh or the dimg leave the stomach 
of another manunal, and grow in the bowels to the size of 4 lines. They 
have been found in the stomach of the dog, the pig, and the rabbit. 
3. Meanwhile numerous embryos are formed in the body of the 
Trichince, which leave thefr parent by the sexual opening at its anterior 
extremity, 
4. Many Trichina} proceed from the bowel, pass into the mesenteric 
glands, and so into the flesh : this migration is accompanied with the 
risk of a severe or even fatal illness. 
This worm was discovered twenty years ago by Professor Owen, 
and it was called Trichina spiralis, fr-om its thinness, and from 
the manner in which they were found in human flesh in a twisted 
form as thin-coated larvte. 
Leukhart foimd them at large in the muscles before they became 
larvae ; he also made kno^sTi that they become impregnated dui'ing 
their abode in the stomach and bowels, and are viviparous. 
Feeding experiments with the flesh of animals which held them in 
2 K 2 
