Year: 1875

THE DEATH OF \ POOR WOMAN IN THE


DEN IN THE NEW YORK CITY PRISON
A DOCTORS DIsQUIsITIoN ON THE TERRI
BILE MALADY.


Mary Brown, who was sentenced to the
'ten-day house of the New York Tombs on
Wednesday, died three days after. Deputy
! Coroner Marsh found the body infested with
trichina. The doctor said The trichina
spiralis enters the human body in the flesh
of animals. 1t settles upon the muscles
and propagates. However clearly the mus
cular fibres of the victim may be displayed
after death, they still look as if they were
sprinkled with the eggs of an insect. In
stances Of the tenancy Of the human body
by the trichina spiralis are more frequent
than is generally supposed. On account of
their microscopic size they are frequently
overlooked. OF late the knowledge that in
stead of being a harmless parasite it is the
cause of q horrible disease is fortunately
becoming general. Instead Of degenerating
harmlessly in its capsule, as it was formerly
supposed to do, it migrates among the
muscles and causes three or four weeks Of
severe suffering and painful death. The
male of this most dangerous of parasites
measures one-eightcenth of an inch, and
the female one. eighth. Their bodies are
round and filiform and their heads are
narrow pointed and unarmed. Trichine
may exist in flesh, and yet be invisible to
the unassisted eye.


DR.. Philip Frank, ex-assistant surgeon of
her Britannia Majesty's staff, sent from
Holland the first information we have bear
ing upon this disease. lie attended a young
maid servant who died of it in 1860 in the
Dresden hospital. After her death her
medical attendants learned that she had
been employed in farmers house, and had
been taken i'll shortly after the killing of
two pigs and an OK. Professor Ienker,
who had attended her in concert with DR..
Frank went to the farm house and ascer-
tanned that the housekeeper and several
of the servants had sickened shortly after
the maid servant illness began. With the
aid of a microscope the Professor discov-
cred in refuse morsels of the pigs myriads
Of trichina. Even the butcher who killed
the animals was sick. Under cross ques-
tioning he admitted that according to a
custom of his guild he had tasted of the
pork while raw. Prof Winchow, of Ber-
lin, fed a rabbit with a part Of the flesh of
the girl, and it was soon seized with gene
raj muscular paralysis, multitudes of young
trichina appearing in the affected regious.
To other rabbits bits of the body of the
first were given, and each of them became
a victim to the trichine. In 1863 one hun
dred and three robust gentlemen sat down
TO an excellent dinner in hotel in Hett-
stadt, Prussia Within month twenty of
them were dead, and eighty were in the
grasp of a terrible malady. An investiga-
ton was instituted, and it was brought to
light that the 'rotewurst, or smoked sau-
sage, had been merely heated. The pig of
which it had been made was traced to a
neighboring farm, whose owner proved that
he had forbidden the sale of the animal, on
account of its being in poor condition. The
remnants swarmed with encapsuled flesh
worms.


In the case of Mary Brown, who was i'm
prisoned for intoxication, the symptoms
were lassitude, depression, sleeplessness loss
of appetite, excruciating pains in the lower
extremities, swelling Of the legs, and finally
pneumonia The deceased muscles were
moderately developed, pale, reddish gray,
and sprinkled with non-capsuled trichin9,
lying on and within the sheaths of the
fbres. They were alive, some lying straight,
and others coiled. There was a marked
degeneration in every part of the muscular
tissues. In the jejunum | found sexually
mature trichina. Before her death every
possible effort was made to induce the un-
fortunate woman to tell something of her
self or of her kinsfolk, but she was persis
tenuy rentlcent.