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EXPERIMENTS WITH TRICHINA SPIRALIS IN 
ITALY. 
By Professor E. Perroncito, M.D., Turin. 
With the view of resolving the question so important to 
public health, as to whether the usual method of cooking 
fresh and salted pork be sufficient to kill the animal parasites 
that might, in using the meat, enter into the human body, I 
undertook a series of experiments in my own laboratory, as 
well as in the shop of a sausage-maker, who allowed me to 
do so. Having already experimentally demonstrated that 
the greater number of helminths and the larval forms 
belonging to them die at a temperature of 48—50° C., if 
only kept up for five minutes, the question was reduced to 
seeing what time was necessary for a temperature of 50° C. 
to penetrate to the middle of the largest pieces of meat, fresh 
or salted, and if, with the usual boiling, this condition was 
effected in different kinds of sausage and salted meats. Here 
are the experiments made and their results : 
1. A piece of veal from a calf one year old, about 7 centi¬ 
meters thick (or 2§ inches), and 94- decimeters broad (or 
4 inches), after ten minutes' boiling was at 53° C. in the 
centre. After twenty minutes’ boiling, in different parts it 
was 63°, 65°, and 66° C. 
2. A square-shaped piece of rump of beef, 8 centimeters 
thick (or 3 inches), and 4 inches broad, put into boiling 
water; after twenty minutes the centre was half raw, though 
it showed a temperature of 47° C., and after thirty-five 
minutes parts of it were found at 68° and 70° C. It is well 
known that pieces of meat of this size are cooked at least for 
an hour, so that the temperature would rise many more 
degrees. 
3. A ham, weighing over 12 lbs., put into cold water, was 
found to have 25° C. of central temperature when boiling 
point was reached. After thirty minutes the thermometer 
indicated at different parts of the centre 35° and 40 3 C.; 
after two hours were marked 46°, 55°, 58°, 62°, 64°, and 
67° C. In the centre of the thick stratum of fat covering 
the ham the heat was 64° C. 
4. Another ham, weighing 16 lbs., after two hours and a 
half’s boiling, the centre part presented a tempeiature of 
444° C.; after three hours and twenty-five minutes it was 
62°, 63°, 74°, 784°, and 84° C. in different central points. 
5. A third ham, of 14 lbs. weight, after three hours and 
