p. 74 | Trichiniasis

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 7, 1866

Trichiniasis.

[Bro. WHITE: As I am receiving letters from different States requesting me to give the particulars of the pork-disease, through the Review, I send the following statement from Dr. Asa Horr, as published in the Linn Co. Register. D. T. Shireman.]

The development of a new disease of marked fatality, and one found to come from our every day domestic modes of life, is the just cause of public concern, not to say alarm. Trichinasis, or pork disease, is eminently such a disease, and the public anxiety to it, justifies the most careful inquiry and the result of the best directed efforts concerning it.

With these convictions I have just visited the locality of the recent fatal cases, that from the physicians in charge of the patients, and by uniting our investigations, a just treatment, or effectual prevention might be determined.

At Marion, Linn Co., and vicinity, fifteen well marked cases have occured. Five of these have died, three or four remain ill, and the remainder are convalescent.

The first cases were in Maine Township, twelve miles N. E. of Marion. It is a settlement of New England farmers. Three boys and three girls, of the ages of 16, 14, 14, 11, 9, and 9 years, the children of M. C. Jordan, Benjamin F. Jordan and Widow Dagget, on their way from Sabbath School, Apr. 22, stopping at a house, took a lunch of sandwiches, in which raw, smoked ham was used. Two days after, all but one of them were attacked with diarrhea, developing into all the symptoms of trichinasis. Effective cathartics were given at once, which doubtless expelled the greater portion of the worm before they multiplied fatally. One—a girl of 16 years—exhibited the symptoms in reversed order—lameness of muscles on the second, and diarrhea on the third day. She was more severely ill than the others, had inflammation of the lungs, and when seen, June 19, could hardly walk, had also a cough and hoarseness of voice. No cathartic was given to her at first, as to the others. A boy 11 years old is the only other case of the six not nearly well. He is thought to be beyond danger, however, unless overtaken by relapse.

Soon after, several cases came under the care of Dr. Ristine, of Marion, who, after careful observation through several weeks recognized the true source of sickness, though not till after other persons in the town showed symptoms of the same disease. Portions of the meat from which the ham used in the sandwiches were made, were put under the microscope and found swarming with myriads of trichinae, which, although apparently dead, once in the stomach, would become living and prolific with worms. The corresponding ham, as also the one first mentioned, after being cooked, were eaten harmlessly by seven other members of the family and visitors. This animal was selected for its healthy appearance from a herd which had been affected with hog-cholera, was fattened for family use, and killed in January last.

The cases in Marion were nine in number, members of one family of that town. They were Mr. Bemis, aged 72; his wife, aged 57; their two sons, Whittier and Henry, aged 20 and 22; and their daughter, Mrs. Lansing, with her four small children. These became ill about the first of May, after having eaten freely at several times of raw, smoked ham from four to ten days previously. Mr. Lansing ate as freely from the same ham, well cooked, and showed no symptoms of the disease. The severity of the cases was thought to be in direct proportion to the amount of raw meat eaten by each person.

Five of these cases proved fatal—one, a little boy, died June first; Henry B. on the 3rd; another child on the 8th; Mr. Bemis on the 15th, and Mrs. Bemis on the 17th. Examinations after death on two of the bodies, showed the parasitism in the muscles, estimated by others and myself at about twenty thousand per cubic inch. Some were also found in the lungs and in the spleen.

On going for samples of meat from the same hog out of which the infested ham had been taken, the farmer reported that he had just fed the last of it to a sow who devoured her own young, having been told that flesh of her own kind would destroy that propensity. The remedy proved quite effectual, inasmuch as she died in a few days, as was stated of hog-cholera. Samples of flesh from this animal, now in my possession, show an abundant infusion of the trichinae.

The symptoms of these diseases, as shown in these cases, were diarrhea on the second day, pain, soreness, and debility of the muscles of the limbs on the third day, with swelling of the face, followed on the fourth and fifth days by swelling of the hands, then of the feet and legs, with fever of a low grade, quick pulse, furred tongue and sleeplessness. The muscular soreness and pain, with fever thirst, tenderness of the abdomen and profuse sweating, continued as the main symptoms till death, in the second or third week, or convalescence, slowly established in from four to eight weeks. Two of the fatal cases had serious pneumonic complications. The diarrhea persisted in some who recovered.

The only distinct variation observed between these and the symptoms described by other observers, is the shortness of the interval between the eating of the meat and the commencement of the diarrhea. Some place the time from five to eight days. Continued observation can alone determine which is correct, or whether the period of incubation varies thus widely in different cases.

HISTORY OF THE DISEASE.

Trichinae spiralis (literally a hair worm coiled) was discovered by Prof. Owen, of England, in subjects brought to the dissecting rooms. This was in 1835, and though often observed afterward, was not regarded as a source of disease, until 1860, Prof. Zenker, of Dresden, found trichinae in great numbers in the muscles of a girl who died under symptoms now recognized as those of trichinasis. Since then the cases observed have been numerous, especially in Germany. In 1863, at Helstaat, Prussia, one hundred and three persons were simultaneously attacked, and nearly all died, after eating of raw sausages at a festival. In the latter part of 1865, Hendersleben, among 2,000 inhabitants, nearly 400 cases occurred with fearful mortality.

In 1864 several members of a family in New York City died after eating raw, smoked ham which was found to be swarming with trichinae. In Detroit, a German woman is reported to recently have died from this disease, which her physician claims resulted from raw pork eaten in Germany before emigrating to this country.

Trichinae spiralis have been found also in the muscles of eels, cats, dogs, badgers, hedge-hogs, moles and earth worms. It has been abundantly proved that by feeding animals on trichinous flesh, sickness and death resulted to them, and a new brood of parasites inhabiting mainly the fibres of the voluntary muscles, ready when eaten in turn, to repeat the fatal process as before.

DESCRIPTION.

The trichinae are about 1-30 of an inch long, and 1-700 of an inch in diameter.

In the flesh of those who have recently died from them, they are found in coils of various shapes, free among the fibers of the muscles; but in pork-specimens they are contained in a membranous sack, oval in form, which some writers state, become in time calcareous like an egg-shell. In the stomach this shell or sack is removed by the gastric fluids, the liberated worm enlarges and enters at once upon the propagation of its young.

The hog cholera is supposed by some to be the same disease. The physicians at Marion are now carrying on a series of experiments to test the question. The public will doubtless be made acquainted with their conclusions. They have secured plentiful supplies with which to make experiments.

This disease may be positively made out during life by removing a minute portion of a muscle by a trivial operation and examining it under the microscope.