Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1874-03-28
Some Outbreaks of Trichiniasis.


Apropos of the recent alarming out
break of trichiniasis at Aurora, Ind,
the Cincinnati Commercial gives the
following facts relating to previous
cases
II may not be uninteresting to the
general reader to know that the trichin6
are more frequently found in the muscles
of the human body than has generally
been supposed. They were first OBJ
served by Fiedemann in 1922, but first
fully described by Prof. Owen in 1885,
who supposed they were harmless
parasite and for a long time they were
considered simply as a dissecting-
curiosity But in 1860 young girl
died in the Dresden hospital from the
effects of trichinB, as was afterward
fully proved by Prof. Zenker. Her
flesh was found after death to be full of
trichina. "They we're alive, some
coiled up and others lying straight and
they appeared to be in all stages of de-
velopment, and in every part of the body,
not even excepting the heart itself" At
the same time Prof Zenker learned
that, soon after the girl had been taken
i'll, the housekeeper became unwell with
similar symptoms and all the servants
were taken sick about the same time.
The butcher who killed the pigs was
also found to be ill., "He had been
three weeks in bed, suffering from
rheumatic pains in the limbs, and had
been as if paralyzed over his body
unable to move his arms, legs, or neck.
He had always been strong man. He
thought he had taken cold the day he
killed the pigs but when it is known
to be habit of German butchers to
taste the meat they kill, in the raw con-
dition, the history of these cases to
Prof. Zenker became a history of trich-
iniatous disease"
Some of the girls flesh was fed to a
rabbit, and it died within month, with
symptoms of the disease, and its mus
cles and flesh were found to be filed
with the trichine. Other rabbits were
fed with the flesh of this first rabbit,
and they died with similar symptoms,
and their flesh was found to contain
myriads of trichina.
Prof Langdenbeck, of Berlin, relates
the following "In 1915 there was q
'church visitation, in which eight per-
sons took part, and seven sat down to a
breakfast consisting of ham, sausages,
cheese, roast veal and white wine. In
the course of three or four days every
one of the seven persons was seized
with diarrhea, pains in the neck, swell
ing of the face and extremities. Of the
seven, four died, and the three who
survived remained i'll for long time. !"
Another instance of the outbreak of
this disease is related by Aitken " In
October, 1868, there was festival held
in Helstadt, in Prussia, on which occa-
sion lob persons ate of sausage, called
by the Germans roosfe,Ourst On the
day after the dinner several persons
were attacked with great irritation of
the bowels ; great prostration and fever.
Within month more than twenty per-
sons died, and more than eighty per-
sons we're then suffering from the fear
full disease under consideration. Case
after case died a slow and lingering
death. Active inquiry into all the cir
cumstances of the dinner was instituted,
and the sausages being examined with
the microscope, were found to be literally
swarming with trichina.
The vitality of the trichina is truly
wonderful it is not destroyed unless
the meat in which they are found located
be subjected to the temperature of boil
ing for such length of time as to in
sure that every particle has been acted
upon by that degree of heat. And who
would then be willing to partake of such
meat? The usual mode of sailing and
smoking meat is not sufficient to destroy
trichina if present in it.