36 BULLETIN 880, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
preliminary curing period, the sausage is held under supervision 
for 18 days from the time the salt is added to the meat. Sausage 
smoked at temperatures ranging from 125° to 130° F. for a rela- 
tively brief period following a preliminary curing period of at least 
6 days is rendered innocuous without subsequent drying. Speci- 
fically the smoking period lasts 12 hours, of which 4 hours are 
devoted to bringing the temperature up gradually to at least 128° F. 
During the next 4 hours the temperature is maintained at 128° F. 
or higher, and during the remaining 4 hours it is allowed to go 
down gradually to a point not below 90° F. 
Sausage smoked for 6 hours at a temperature of about 100° F. 
followed by 10 days of drying was not rendered innocuous. This 
procedure is accordingly not recognized by the bureau as meeting 
requirements for the destruction of trichine in sausage. 
Hams are rendered innocuous by the following methods: (1) 
The products are cured by means of dry salt (4 pounds of salt 
per hundredweight of meat) for at least 40 days at a temperature 
not lower than 36° F., and then smoked or pale-dried for 10 days 
at a temperature not lower than 95° F.; or (2) the products are 
cured on the basis of 3 days’ cure for each pound of weight of indi- 
vidual hams, followed by 48 hours of smoking at a temperature not 
lower than 80° F. and finally by 20 days’ drying at a temperature 
not lower than 45° F. 
Products known as coppa are rendered innocuous by dry-salt 
curing for 18 days (44 pounds of salt per hundredweight of meat 
with the addition of small quantities of pickle solution) at tempera- 
tures not lower than 36° F. followed by drying for at least 35 days 
at a temperature not lower than 45° F. 
Products known as capicola are rendered innocuous by 25 days 
of curing under conditions similar to those used in preparing coppa, 
followed by 20 hours of smoking at a temperature not lower than 
80° F., and finally by 20 days’ drying at a temperature not lower 
than 45° F. 
No method has yet been discovered for rendering lockschinken 
innocuous by means of curing without affecting the quality of the 
product. 
The factors which appear to exert injurious influences on trichine 
in the course of curing are salt and temperature. The former grad- 
ually undermines the vitality of the parasites, probably by with- 
drawing water from their tissues and also perhaps by exerting upon 
them a direct toxic action. Salt furthermore lowers the resistance of 
the larve to heat and thus renders them susceptible to temperatures 
which normally would not prove fatal. The temperatures employed 
during smoking or pale-drying in most of these experiments were 
by themselves too low to injure seriously the parasites, but the 
