548 
F. 8. BILLING8. 
TRICHINA 
A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF THE 
AMERICAN VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
By F. S. Biixings, V. M. 
(Continued from page 502 .) 
TKICHINIASIS AMONG SWINE. 
Although the recorded observations of the calcified trichinae 
in the muscles of man may be said to date back to about 1821, 
without any knowledge of their nature, however; and although 
the capsule was described, as we have seen, by Hilton in 1831, and 
the parasite by Pajet and Owen a few years later, still it was not 
until 1847 that Leidy discovered and described similar forma¬ 
tions in the muscles of swine; the connection between those of 
man and swine being unquestionably established by Zeuker, of 
Dresden, in 1860. Previous to this discovery of Zeuker these 
parasites were looked upon more as curiosities, exciting the in¬ 
terest of naturalists, than as the actiological momenta to a most 
serious disease. Their direful nature was soon, however, more 
than satisfactorily established by numerous epidemics, to be here¬ 
after noticed. It is to German investigation that we must look, 
almost entirely, for any authoritative statistics with reference to the 
numerical percentage of infection with these parasites, not only in 
our own family, but swine, for in no other country is there at present 
anything approaching a systematic examination of pork, and even 
in Germany there is much room for improvement, as there is in 
this entire field, which I am endeavoring to impress upon the 
people of this country, viz., the relation of our animals and their 
diseases to human health. 
The following statistics are taken mostly from Virchow’s 
“ Archiv fur path. Anatomie, etc.; ” the “ Vierteljahrsschrift fur 
gerichtliche Medicin; ” the “ Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Thier- 
medicin ; ” the “ Veterinary Reports of Saxony,” the “ Magazin 
fur Thierheilkunde,” and its successor the “ Archiv fur Thier- 
heilkunde,” and the “ Mitthielungen aus der Praxis der Preus- 
sischen Staate.” 
