internal Enemies. 
308 
[May, 
and trichinosis in mankind, may now claim their due 
place among the established ills which we must take into 
account. 
From what has been already said it will doubtless be un- 
derstood that when a horde of Trichina have once established 
themselves in the flesh of some unfortunate man, there is 
no known method for their expulsion or destruction. . There 
they are and there they must remain, and the physician can 
do little more than seek to alleviate some of the symptoms, 
and to keep up the strength of his patient till the intruders 
pass into the encysted stage and cease to occasion torment. 
Hence, as cure is scarcely possible, the more weight must 
be laid upon prevention, and this fortunately is quite within 
human reach. The most highly trichinised pork may be 
eaten with safety if every part of it has been exposed, for a 
sufficient length of time, to a temperature of not less than 
212 0 F. Indeed the Trichina are found to be killed at much 
lower temperatures, even at 134 0 to 140° F. But in practice 
the difficulty lies here,— that though a sufficient tempera- 
ture may be reached on the outside of a large piece of meat, 
yet, on account of the very defective conduCting-power of 
the material, the heat at a little distance from the surface 
falls far short of the mark. Boiling for two hours is not 
more than sufficient to produce a temperature of 140° F. at 
the depth of 2 inches from the surface. Dr. Gerlach boiled 
a piece of meat 4 inches in thickness for an hour, and at 
the end of that time he was able to find Trichina still living 
in the interior ! Roasting is still less efficacious, as the 
brown outer layer is a yet worse conductor of heat than 
the meat in its original condition. Dr. Dietzsch, chemist 
to the Industrial Museum of Zurich, lays down the rule 
that so far as boiled or roast meat has a reddish colour, or 
emits a reddish juice when cut, the Tnchina } if present, 
will still be living. 
Everyone therefore must admit that the process of cooking, 
so called, as it is carried on in most hotels, restaurants, 
coffee-houses, &c., in the “ ’am and beef-shops” of London, 
and even in many private families, is no safeguard what- 
ever. If Trichina were found in the meat as it left the 
butcher’s shop, they will still be found in the half-raw mass 
served up at table. The only method for the effectual 
destruction of these and other parasites would be to abandon 
our old semi-barbarous habit of cooking meat in such huge 
masses that the outside may be charred whilst the “unknown 
interior ” is still raw. The admirers of such crude matter 
“ rare ” they call it — can scarcely now plead superior 
