Report on trichinae and trichinosis / United States Marine Hospital Service ; prepared, under direction of the supervising Surgeon-General, by W.C.W. Glazier.

  • Marine Hospital Service
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on trichinae and trichinosis / United States Marine Hospital Service ; prepared, under direction of the supervising Surgeon-General, by W.C.W. Glazier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    155/212 page 155
    Professor Gerlach, of Berlin, whose authority on this subject canuot be doubted, says (Die Fleisehkost, pp. 69, 70): n The microscopic examination of hogs after killing in connection with other means of protection is always a necessity, especially in all places where trichi me have been previously found. The experience of ten years proves its usefulness, its security, and the possibility of its execution. All the earlier objections have been refuted by the success of the prac- tice. Yet the objection that it is very difficult to find tricliime when they exist in small numbers still retains its force. But the usefulness of such investigations loses nothing on this account, because when the examina- tion is skillfully performed no fears of trichinous infection need be enter- tained after a negative result. Isolated trichinae do not produce disease, and when the meat is sufficiently infected to produce even light cases of trichinosis tbe trichinae will be readily discovered in the regular exami- nations. Thus far only one instance has come to my knowledge in which trichinosis occurred after microscopic examination had been instituted. In this instance (in Hanover) it was ascertained that the butcher had not submitted all his hogs to the inspector]n and further (p. 79), “dur- ing eleven years 744 hogs were found infected, and of this number there was only a small number determined after the development of trichinosis among the people, and we can assume that more than 600 trichinosed swine have been withdrawn from consumption by microscopic examina- tion, and when we consider that one hog may be the cause of hundreds of cases of disease, especially in the cities, it must be plain that many thousands of cases of trichinosis have been averted by such examina- tions. IN o measure for the protection of the public health can show a more biilliant success. Let us take, for instance, the city of Hanover. “Previous to the microscopic inspection of hogs in this city there oc- curred (in lS64-’05) three epidemics, in which over 300 nersons were in- fected. Since its introduction in 1866 until now (1875) only one epi- demic, with 54 cases, has occurred, and these cases were all traced to the meat of one butcher, who, according to his own confession, had killed a hog in the beginning of the year 1870—at which time the epidemic oc- curred—and sold the meat without its having been subjected to micro- scopic examination. How often the city of Hanover might have been visited by epidemics of trichinosis is shown by the fact that in the in- tervening 9 years trichinae have been found in 9 hogs. In Linden (a suburb of Hanover, with an independent city government), where the inspection was introduced at the same time that it was ordained in Han- over and shortly afterwards given up, an epidemic occurred in 1874 in which 400 persons were infected and 40 died of trichinosis. “Tbe application of the microscope is not at all difficult, and only in large cities where large numbers of hogs are slaughtered is there any inconvenience encountered, and tips can be readily overcome by the em- ployment ot men and women without any special knowledge of the med- ical sciences. The greatest difficulty is to bring all hogs under control •
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3