Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-04-08
THE HOUSEHOLD.


In the matter of trichinosis there is dense
and widespread ignorance TO be overcome,
and the task is one of no small difficulty, for
it concerns one of the common affairs of life,
in respect to which the mass of people are
tenacious of habit and hard to teach. There
is hardly newspaper in this country or in
Germany which has not at some time, or a
dozen times, published the fact that trichin@
are killed by cooking, and that pork which
has been fried, boiled, broiled, or in any way
subjected TO heat above 17Go is perfectly
harmless yet the Germans of the Father
land and those who have come over here per-
sist in eating raw ham, and their folly and
ignorance have occasionally fatal conse-
quences. There have been alarming epidem-
les in Germany owing to this revolving habit,
as, for instance, at Hedersleben, a town of
2, goo inhabitants, where there were 1927 cases
of trichinosis in 1866, of which 50 were fatal.
The disease is common in Sw eden, too, from
the same cause. In France, where as might
be supposed the food of even the poorest
classes is generally well cooked. it is said that
but a single instance of trchinosis has ever
been known. At Creepy -Valois, in 1873,
II persons were taken violently i'll after eat
ing of fresh pork. One, girl, died, and an
autopsy revealed the presence of innumera-
BILE encysted trichiDm. 1t is worthy of re-
mark that it was French and not an Amer
lean pig which caused this outbreak, the only
one which has ever been reported in France.
By excluding American pork the French
government infiicts hardship upon its peo-
pie but does not prevent trichinosis the
people themselves do that by cooking what
they eat. The imperfect statistics we have
seem to show, however, that tricLinm are
more common in American swine than in
those of any other country, except, perhaps,
Sweden Out of 400 animals examined at
Chicago, 28-1 in j0-were found infect
ed out of 2lO hams sent to Sweden in one
cargo, 81 in 26-were infected. A German
professor publishes the following results of
microscopic inspection in various cities In
| Brunswick trichinm were found in hog in
5,000 in Halle the proportion was l in !, =
500 Gotha, in /, 800 Schwerin, l in $50 /;
| Copenhagen, l in 4G5; Stockholm, in 2GG !;
in KEEL, Prussia, in 2GO, and in Lieukeping,
Sweden, l in G3. In many German cities
the microscopic examination of the flesh of
every hog slaughtered is obligatory, aud ex-
| peTts are appointed for that purpose. In
other cities the butchers and marketmen
sensibly recognizing their interest in the mat
ter, have formed societies. of which every
member is provided with good microscope,
and knows how to use it. Microscopic ex-
animation, however, is a safeguard which, in
order to be efficient, must be applied to ev-
cry animal, either slaughtered in a country
or imported into it, and it would be mani
fest impossibility to thus inspect every car
case which goes out of tue great abattoirs of
Cincinnati and Chicago Legislation can do
very little with trichinosis, except by aiding
to difIuse information. If swine-raiseTs can
be taught that feeding their hogs on the flesh
of animals of any kind helps TO spread and
perpetuate triehinOsis, one important step
will have been taken toward the extermina-
ton of the pest. Another fact which every
body should know is that Well-cooked pork
never produces tTichinOsis in human beings.