Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-05-19
Knocked Pork Dangerous.

Northern States during the cold winter
months. Hunters. trappers, lumber
men and woodchoppers also make use
of slices of raw pork 10 make a sand
witch for luncheon, and not few per-
sons who read this will remember the
time when slices Of cold raw pork and
a piece OF bread helped to fill an empty
stomach on 4 winter DAY in the back
woods. Whether any of the thousands
of persons who have partaken Of such
food in times past were injured by 1t
will probably never be known, but we
know that there are numbers of them
still living. in the enjoyment of good
health and green old age. But of late
it appears that the minute parasite
known rs trichina is found more fire.
quently in pork than formerly; though
whether this is due to the increase in
number of investigators, and their vigil
lance in searching for such objects of
natural history, or because the parasite
has really become more common, it
would be difficult to determine. The
fact. however, that it is occasionally
found in pork is sufficient ground for
warning consumers of this kind of meat
of their danger.
Trichine are very minute, varying
from One-eighteenth to One-siXth of an
inch in length, and yet they are the
most dangerous of all the internal par
asites known to infest the human race.
The mature worms live in the intes-
tines of animals, but the immature. or
what are termed cysts, live in the mus
ces. They are found in the encysted
form in the flesh of hogs and various
other animals, but they can only reach
maturity, or become fully developed
and reproduce their kind. when the
meat OF the animal which they infest is
eaten by another, thereby being set
free by the digestion. or dissolving of
the cysts. From the stomach they
pass into the bowels. where they propa-
gate very rapidly, and millions of The
Young bore outward and into the flesh
and muscles of their victims. The
symptoms are at first diarrhea, then
violent muscular pains like rheuma-
tism, while the worms are boring
through the walls OF the intestines,
and later fever sets in. After the
worms reach the muscles and become
encysted, they cease to irrilate, which
occurs in six to eight weeks, provided
the person affected lives that time.
To speak of treatment is not our
province, but prevention is a legitimate
subject for discussion, and cannot be
too strongly urged upon every farmer
who raises hogs or person who eats
pork. Cleanliness in the hog pen and
yard is the first step. and the
second is to avoid allowing hogs
and pigs to catch or eat rats or
mice, which are really the most prolific
disseminators of these dangerous para
sites. Ii is a very common practice
with many farmers to throw all sorts OF
olial and Nth into their hog pens. and
if their boys happen to Kill On wound a
rat. he goes among the rest, thereby
endanger II the lie of every person
who may eat pork raised on the farm.
Rats on a farm should be trapped, and
their bodies burned or buried where no
animal can find them; but instead of
this they are usually permitted to
harbor about the hog pen. where they
find plenty of food, and if one gets
cornered hog will catch and devour
him. trichine and all. Slaughter house
pork Is the most dangerous of all, and
it should never be used until subjected
to a thorough microscopic examination.
Raw or half cooked pork should be
tabooed under all circumstances as
dangerous. and the cooking must be
very thorough and complete or some of
the parasites may escape destruction.
Some recent experiments Of Nj. Vacher,
of Paris. reported in the Lancet. show
that far more heat is required to kill
triehine than has heretofore been sup
posed. He afiirms that protection
given by cooking is quite illusory. and
that in the thorough cooking of an or
binary joint of meat the temperature
in the center is not sufficient to insure
the destruction of the parasite. He
took a Loo of nork of moderate size