TRICHINOSIS.
—A disease caused by the trichina, a minute worm that affects people, hogs and rats. People become affected with the disease from raw or partly cooked pork. These worms are killed by thorough cooking or by the process of hot pickling and curing meat products.
Hogs become affected through eating offal and rats about the slaughterhouses. Hogs that are fed on green grass and other wholesome food, free from these minute worms, are less likely to have trichinæ embedded in their flesh and muscles. Hogs do not seem to be bothered with the trichinæ, but people suffer very severely, as both soreness in the muscles and fever result.
A few days after eating the trichinæ, the worms multiply very rapidly in the digestive tract, from which they migrate to other parts of the body and work their way through the tissues. There is no remedy in way of treatment when affected. Prevention is the one cure. Inasmuch as five to ten per cent of hogs are affected, it is advisable that all pork or ham be eaten only after most thorough cooking.