The weekly union record., 1866-03-10
Fearful Scenes in a German Village.


DR.. Pouchet, who has charge of the
scientific department of the Avenir
National, Paris journal, gives fright
full account of the plague which is COM
mitting such havoc in Germany, caused
by eating uncooked swine's flesh. The
particulars given by Nj. Pouehet are
taken from a private letter from DR..
Karl Stein, of Frankfort, dated the 9th
of December, as follows: ''Edersblen is
little town in the environs of Magde-
burg-one of those little German towns
that seem the abode of peace and rustic
felicity, where no noise is heard save
the merry clink of glasses at the bier
brauerei, and the jolly tones of the
drinkers calling for another glass all
around. Well, this little town, so
smiling and happy. is now filed with
mourning and desolation. For whole
month past, death has reigned there.
A fearful death, after unexampled suf-
ferings, and those that are unacquainted
with the nature of their disease know
that they are being eaten up alive by
legion of worms, hardly so thick as a
mans hair, that have worked their way
into the tissue of their flesh, their mus
cles and their nerves. Is not such a
fate horrible to dwell upon? On the
9th of last month, DR.. Karl Stein, of
Frankfort, wrote to one of our friends
that upwards of one hundred children
for they appear to enjoy an immunity
had been deprived Of their parents.
There was hardly house in the village
that did not number victim. At that
date, upwards of three hundred patients
were awaiting death, which they knew
to be inevitable-a prey to fearful suf-
ferings. From seventy to eighty in
habitants, who, at the outset of the
epidemic, had felt unwell, had taken to
flight, to escape what they considered
to be the cholera /; but they had fallen
down on the roads, and died without
relief-their corpses alone were picked
up" The epidemic, DR.. Pouchet pro-
ceeds to say, was caused by the ravages
of the worm called trinchine, whence
the epidemic has received the name
trinchinosis. The trinchine is one of
the ento-oa of the pig, and it is capable
of being transplanted into and thriving
in the human body. In Germany, pork
flesh, imperfectly cured and smoked in
the shape of ham and German sausage,
is staple article of food, and from the
human stomach, where they penetrate
with the ham and soucisson dear to the
the German palates, the larvae Of these
ento-oa pass into the blood, their size
being so microscopic as to enable them
to penetrate even into the minutest
veins they lodge in the nerves, in the
muscular and cellular tissues, and feed
upon those parts of the human organiz-
alton, causing fearful agony and great
constitutional disturbance, which ends |
in death. No cure has as yet been
discovered, but the preventive process is
obvious. To abstain from such prepar-
ations of pork as are eaten in semi
crude state is a sure means of avoiding
"trinchinosis - but to eat half-smoked /
and raw ham. cut in thin slices,
is as general rule in Gefmany as
smoking and drinking. Hence the rapid
propagation of the disease, as simple |
slice of ham or German sausage may
contain larvae of millions of these para
sites. In Germany, the morbid pathol- |
ogy of the ravages caused by this for
midable destroyer has been carefully
investigated within the last few years.
DR.. Wirchow, of Berlin, (known as the
opponent of Herr Won Bismarck, but
whose scientific reputation far exceeds
his political fame,) has made conclusive
experiments on the subject, from which
it appears that, in addition to man and
the pig, rabbits and mice are liable to
be trinchinized; but that the dog,
sheep, OK and pigeon are not.
THERE are no less than thirty seven
rebellions recorded in English history
between the time of William the Con-
queror, A. D. 1869, and the Irish out
break in 1903. Several others have