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Trichine (Following account of this)

The following account of this disease has been condensed from a report made in April, 1866, by a commission of scientific and medical men, ap. pointed by the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and may be regarded as thoroughly reliable:

Trichina is the term applied to a minute animal (parasite) known for some time to have existed in the muscles of man, and which could be bred in the muscles of some other mammals by feeding them with it. More recently it has been discovered to occur naturally in the muscles of swine. It is a minute, slender, and transparent worm, scarcely 1-20th of an inch in length. After this animal becomes introduced into the stomach of man, or other animals susceptible to its ravages, and which may feed upon flesh infected with it, the worms become freed from their capsules by the action of the digestive fluid, and range freely in the stomach and intestines of the custodian.

Their development proceeds rapidly, and procreation takes place within 4 or 5 days; each female gives birth to from 60 to 100 young, and dies soon after. The young thread-like worm remains for a short time within the lining mombrane of the intestines, causing irritation, diarrhea, and somehomes, the voluntary muscles. In traversing the muscles they do not seem to penetrate the fibre of the muscle, but to wind their way between them.

At this time they cause to those afflicted great muscular pain and soreness, cramps, and even tetanic symptoms. After about 4 weeks migration they commence to encyst themselves in the muscular fibre, none having ever been found encysted in fat or the other tissues. They perforate the walls of the fibre selected as their abode, pass into it, and fasten themselves in the space so made. The worm then secretes a delicate membranous sac, which finally becomes calcareous by still further secretions. It is only in man, however, that these calcareous cysts have been observed, hogs being usually killed long before time has elapsed for the accumulation of sufficient lime. The youngtrichina having now reached its torpid stage, it will so remain during the lifetime of its custodian. It feeds no longer, but goes on slowly in development until it has reached the condition of puberty, and then awaits its chances of freedom to "commence its cycle." They can breed but once in the body of one and the same animal. They have been known to cause partial paralysis of certain muscles by the great number embedded in them.

So much now for the history of this animal and its mode of life, and cause of disease. Now to what extent does this parasite exist in this country? An examination of this medical commission made in Chicago, Ill., during the spring of 1866, of 1394 hogs, 28 of them, or 1 in 48, were found to contain trichinæ, and numbering in each hog from 48 to 18,000 trichinæ to a cubic inch.