i88o.] 
Internal Enemies . 
8o7 
death. Of course the greater the number of Trichina swal- 
lowed the more violent is the resulting affedlion. Even on 
the very day when the fatal morsel has been consumed loss 
of appetite, nausea, and diarrhoea occcasionally set in, and, 
as a matter of course, resist all medical treatment. 
Sometimes, however, the mischief only makes itself known 
from about the seventh day to the end of the second or third 
week. By this time the Trichina have perforated the intes- 
tines, and made their way into the muscular system. 
In this second stage of the disease the sufferings of the 
patient are often extreme. The face takes a peculiarly 
bloated appearance and the eyelids swell ; violent muscular 
pain sets in ; the hands and feet swell ; respiration, swal- 
lowing, and the movement of the jaws become difficult ; 
and lastly, profuse and exhaustive sweats, and the ordinary 
symptoms of typhoid fever ensue, with which, indeed, tri- 
chinosis is sometimes confounded. After about the fifth 
week, if the number of parasites introduced into the body is 
small, they may become encysted as in the pig, when the 
alarming symptoms gradually disappear, and the patient 
returns to his ordinary condition. Death, however, is more 
frequently the result. We should mention that in man, as 
in swine, the Trichina never cut short the sufferings of their 
vidlim by attacking the heart. 
It may, perhaps, be thought that trichinised porkers are 
very rarely met with. Such is by no means the case. We 
learn, on good authority, that in North Germany alone 
763 pigs, slaughtered between the years 1864 and 1874, have 
been found suffering from this affedfion, and that several 
hundred human beings have died from partaking of their 
flesh. A single trichinous pig may easily prove fatal to a 
hundred men. In England the cases of this fearful disease 
have hitherto been less numerous than in Germany, from a 
difference in national habits, to which reference will be made 
below. Still many of our readers may possibly possess 
slices of a man who died in London, of trichinosis, some 
ten years ago, and whose muscles, cut into fine sedfions, 
have been duly preserved as microscopic objedls. 
Lately there has been a very serious outbreak of trichino- 
sis on board the reformatory school-ship Cornwall , where 
eighteen decided cases of illness and one death have oc- 
curred. On a microscopical examination of the muscles 
and viscera of the body, Trichina were distindfly recognised. 
In America the evil and its consequences are spreading, 
and have reached the Pacific Coast, a fatal case having been 
observed in Oregon. So that trichinised pork and bacon. 
