The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1880-05-06
Death In Raw Pork.

Notwithstanding the frequent we'll
attested cases of death from tricL ina,
both here and abroad, many persons,
says a New York paper, seem TO think
trichina rs source OF fatal disease, an
invention OF physicians. Every few
weeks we observe the records OF fatal
case in the West, usually in the country.
Recently two deaths, those of Mrs.
Harris and her daughter, have been re-
ported at the village of West Sonora,
Ohio. They informed their physician
that week or so before their illness,
they had eaten freely ofraw pork; that
they experienced almost Immediately
exceeding nausea, and were compelled
to 60 to bed, from which they never
arose. All their symptoms were those
generally attendant upon the disorder,
and there is no reasonable doubt that
they owe their death to the raw pork.
Trichina, or trichiaa Spiralis, is the
name of a peculiar nematold worm,
which in its sexual limmaturity inhabits
the muscles generally ofthe pig. 1t was
discovered in 1885, Wormald, then
demonstrator of anatomy at st. Bar
tholomew's hospital, London, giving 10
Richard Owen, the celebrated natural
ist, four microscopic specimens of
specked muscle from a subject then in
the dissecting rooms. Owen, who has
usually received credit for the discovery,
communicated soon after to the Zoologi-
cal society a description of microscopic
entOzO0n infesting the muscles of the
human body. A medical student named
Paget had also arrived, independently,
at similar results at the same time, and
read a paper TO the Aberncthian society
week before Owen had presented his.
Ever since then the trichina has been
actively discussed on both sides of the
sea in all medical and scientific associa.
lions. Various theories were advanced,
but it was not till 1860 that Virchow
and Leuckhart arrived separately, bS
feeding animals on flesh containing
trichina, at the conclusion that the
parents of the encysted trichina are
small thread-like worms, never before
revealed TO science, Leuckhart's expert
ments being made with human flesh oc-
cupied by these parasites. Young
trichina, as seen in the musclrs, look
like spirally-coiled worms in the in
terror of small globular oval cysts, and
are barely perceptible to the naked eye.
These cysts are externally covered with
calcareous matter, more or less, accord
ing to the time they have remained
fixed, and the degree Of generation OF
their walls. The worm measures one
eighteenth of an inch long and one
thirtieth of an inch broad. The cysts
are sometimes wholly absent, and hence
must be regarded as abnorma,-the re-
suit of local Inflammation caused by
presence Of the worm, which in this
larval state is very much smaller. An
enormous number Of these larva may
exist simultaneously in the muscles of
q single person. Leuckhart estimated
that one ounce of flesh of a cat contained
325,000 trichina. If all the voluntary
muscles OF man of ordinary size were
similarly affected, the worms would ex-
ceed 1850 900 600. Some physicians as
sert that single sufferer may be in.
lected by 100000 How the pig ac-
quires its trichina is unknown; but the
larvel worms, no doubt, get into its
body from putrid flesh. The adult
trichina may inhabit the intestinal
canal of all animals in which the lava
have been found in the muscles, and the
animals include man, dog, cat, mouse,
rabbit, mole, rat, hedgehog and badger