A MORSEL FOR PORK-EATERS.
By J. G. Wood
I extract the following from the weekly Missouri Republican of July 3, 1879, which shows that the attention of physicians in different nations is being aroused to the dangers of pork-eating. “The physicians are astonished by the number of cases of trichinosis which have recently come to their attention in this vicinity, the disease which is produced by eating pork infected with trichinæ. “There is considerable alarm on the other side of the water about the presence of these parasites in American pork, and the Privy Council in England has the subject of the inspection of all American pork offered for sale in the market. “Italy and Greece have already taken prohibitory action upon the subject. The matter has been presented for the consideration of the authorities of Germany. The trichina is an animal parasite which takes its name from the Greek word signifying a hair, owing to its minute size. “Recently in Brooklyn there were four cases of trichinosis, all of which occurred in the family of the book-keeper of one of the largest dry goods houses in the city. He was a German, and one Friday evening, when his wife's mother, the wife of a wealthy New York jeweler, was visiting them, they made a meal of raw ham, all of the family, including the servant girl, but not the children, eating of the meat. In two days all were sick, and they were treated for malarial fever, sewer-gas fever, and typhoid fever, the symptoms of the latter being marvellously like those of trichinosis; but the disease did not yield to the treatment, and then the physicians in tracing back the diet for some days seized upon the fact of the raw ham to justify their suspicion of trichinosis. The mother-in-law died. . . . The book-keeper got almost well, and was thought to be convalescent, when he suddenly died. The trichinæ were found in abundance in the muscles of his arm, larynx, and even in the eye-ball muscles. Then there was no doubt that both deaths were produced by trichinotic pork. “These parasites produce a death of great agony. They burrow in the muscles of the human frame, and cause the patient to suffer intense pain, to which the greatest rheumatic pains would be a feeling of comfort. There is nothing for the patient to do except to remain perfectly motionless until death comes to give relief. “Can medicine do nothing for the afflicted patient? I asked. “There is nothing powerful enough to penetrate the system, and to follow up the trichinæ. . . . They are the natural parasite of the rat and the rabbit, whose muscles are full of them. . . . A family poisoned by pork are now suffering from the disease in43Elizabeth, N. J. They were Germans, and had eaten ham raw.” Those who have learned to live without swine's flesh should be thankful.