Pork Disease—Trichina Spiralis.
Within a few years a new disease has been discovered in Europe, and has come to be quite common, in Germany particularly. The following facts concerning it we take from the American Journal of Medical Science, a quarterly, edited by Isaac Hays, M. D., and published at Philadelphia, also in London and Paris: It is called Trichina Spiralis, and is caused by persons feeding upon pork infested with parasites, there having been found in half a pound of such meat as many as 300,000 of these little creatures. Upon being introduced into the stomach of a person, these multiply with amazing rapidity. The stomach and intestinal canal of the person may within a few days after eating such a quantity of pork contain 30,000,000 individuals of the Trichina Spiralis. These migrate in vast numbers to the muscles where they become encapsulated, or enclosed in minute cysts, and prove a source of great disturbance to the economy. The symptoms caused by the presence of this parasite in the tissues of the body resemble very closely those of typhoid or typhus fever. The true nature of the disease was first discovered by Prof. Zenker, of Jacob's Hospital, Dresden, who in 1860 had a case, in the person of a servant girl, who died after five weeks' illness. On post mortem examination numberless trichina were found in the muscles and also in the mucus of the intestines. The Professor became aware of the fact that a few days previous to the sickness of the girl the people with whom she lived killed a pig whose lungs, and meat used in sausages showed, by microscopic examination, a large number of trichina spiralis. This girl had great pain in all her muscles. In 1860 three individuals of Walbeck, after eating raw meat finely cut and sausage, manifested symptoms of typhoid fever with great pain in the stomach and muscles. These recovered. In 1862 a number of cases occurred in Plauen in Saxony. The physicians of the town hospital examined small pieces of the muscles of these persons, and observed readily in it the trichina moving lively. One-fifth of the number of these cases was very severe, though all got well after some months, except one. A number of cases occurred in 1862 in Kelbe in Prussia, of which eight terminated fatally. In Hettstadt in Prussia the disease broke out last October and was produced by the consumption of sausages. By microscopic examination of small pieces of muscles of the persons affected the trichina spiralis was everywhere detected. Dr. Muller of Hamburg, who treated some of these patients, thus describes the disease: "The disease begins a few days after eating the meat in which there are trichina, with loss of appetite, and, almost without exception, with diarrhea and fever, œdema of the eyelids, also pain or at least painful sense of weakness in the limbs, œdema of the joints, difficulty in moving the tongue, profuse clammy perspiration; and those patients who do not become convalescent die either unconscious with symptoms of typhus fever, or in a few cases remain conscious to the end, complaining of inability to breathe freely. Previous to my departure from Hettstadt eighteen to twenty persons had died of trichina disease and more than eighty persons were at that period afflicted with the same malady produced by the same cause." Numerous other instances are given in which single individuals or numbers of persons have had this disease, in which the cause has been traced to the eating of pork. Pork affected by trichina spiralis has nothing unusual in its appearance or taste, and the disease can only be detected by microscopic examination. Neither smoking nor salting nor roasting nor boiling, except these are much more thoroughly performed than usual, nor putrefaction destroys the lives of these parasites. Experiments have been made on various animals,—dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, etc., by feeding them pork infested by these little animals, all of which were poisoned and many of which died, and all upon examination showed the trichina spiralis in their muscles. Some of our readers will remember reading in the New York papers last winter, the account of the poisoning of a whole family in that city by eating ham which to all appearance was perfectly good. The case was investigated by a Dr. Schnetter, who found the ham full of the trichina spiralis. Moral.—Persons who do not eat pork are in no danger of having this disgusting disease.