p. 181 | The Trichina Spiralis

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1872

The Trichina Spiralis.

The following article we take from the Chicago Illustrated Journal, published by Horton & Leonard, Nos. 10 and 12 North Jeff. St., who have kindly granted us the use of the engraving for its illustration. We commend the article to the careful perusal of every one. The reason, it seems, why more people are not slaughtered by infected pork is because the parasites happen to be killed in cooking. But these disgusting animals, though dead, we would not suppose could be considered by any one the most inviting kind of food. The more startling fact, however, is, that these worms are now discovered in other kinds of meat, in fowls and in oysters. A person who, to meet the cravings of appetite, indulges in any kind of meat liable to be thus infected, and finds himself as the result doomed to inevitable death, from having taken into his system myriads of these loathsome parasites, to consume him as the worms consumed Herod, Acts 12:23, must feel that he has sold his life at a very cheap rate. Let all take warning in time. S. D. Adventists who have stepped out on the health reform by faith, will soon find themselves walking in this matter by sight. The Journal says:—

It may not be inopportune at this season of the year, when meat becomes more largely an article of diet, as the cold weather advances, to give to the public at large, and to pork lovers in particular, a little information resulting from recent investigations with the microscope.

The Trichina Spiralis or “Pork Worm” was at first supposed to be an inhabitant of pork only, but later investigation announces its discovery as an inhabitant of many if not all flesh-eating animals. It may be said, however, to be more naturally “indigenous” to the pig, as about one in ten of the hogs fattened for slaughter are found to be thus infested. So minute are they that a powerful microscope is required to reveal their presence, and an ordinary pork steak might contain enough parent insects to generate a million or so to infest the flesh of the unfortunate consumer. In a piece of flesh one-twelfth of an inch square and one-fiftieth of an inch in thickness, as many as twelve trichina have been observed, which would furnish seven thousand two hundred to the square inch.

The following cut represents the worm as it appears under a microscope of great magnifying power, and as found in specimens of deceased pork. When reposing, coiled in its tiny capsule, it presents the appearance of an egg-shaped mass, but upon being taken into the human stomach the capsule is dissolved by the gastric juice, and the liberated worm proceeds immediately to penetrate the surrounding coats of the stomach and the flesh, where it propagates its kind rapidly and indefinitely, causing a speedy and horrible death of its victim.

These insects have a wonderful tenacity of life, and when once introduced into the human system there is no remedy so far as science has yet been able to discover.

They have been known to live for three days in a temperature of forty-five degrees below the freezing point of water, and they have been boiled in thin slices of meat for twenty-two minutes without killing them, but a heat of one hundred and seventy degrees is said to be sufficient to dissolve the albumen, which forms the surrounding capsule of the insect, and thus destroy it. This being so, we advise lovers of pork to see to it that they do not eat their steak rare, and as the trichina has been found in oysters also, those who have been in the habit of rapturously “gobbling” them raw will reflect solemnly after reading this article before they again indulge in this refreshing pastime. Just think of it! You might be swallowing a million in “one fell swoop.”

The founder of the Jewish law showed great wisdom in forbidding the use of swine’s flesh, and the Jews, unto this day, religiously abhor the use of pork as an article of diet. Many of our best medical authorities concur in the wisdom of the Mosaic precept, and recommend its entire discontinuance. But the command given to Peter—“kill and eat”—will continue to have the precedence, and our bills of fare still bear the significant words, “pork and beans” and “ham and eggs,” which will be ordered and eaten, by voracious pork eaters, in spite of trichina spiralis, or any other disease which may result from taking pork-steak rare.