TRICHINIASIS, trik'i-ni'A-sis, or TRICH INOSIS, -nn'si; 1 Neo-Lat .• from trichina, trich ina). A disease caused by the ingestion of food containing trichina (q.v.). characterized by a number of puzzling symptoms. The disease was noted by Wormald. who saw the characteristic specks whife dissecting subjects in Saint Bar tholomew's Hospital ; but its cause was demon strated by Paget and the naturalist Robert Brown, in 18,35. Virchow (q.v.) first propagated the nematode in an animal and demonstrated its presence in the intestine in 1859. Leuekart in the following year presented a full, lucid, and complete solution of the whole question. After being swallowed. in pork, for example, the trich ina worms traverse the connective tissue and gain access to all parts of the body. They are found. after death, in the muscles of the trunk and head, as well as in the extremities: and most thickly placed in the diaphragm, the in tereostals, the muscles of the neck (especially of the larynx) and of the eyes. The intestinal mucus also contains many. The intestinal canal shows eatarrhal changes. The mesenteric glands are swollen. The heart muscle is almost in variably free from invasion.
The symptoms of the disease are as follows: On the second or third day after eating the in fected meat the patient suffers from nausea, vomiting. colic, and diarrhma. Constipation may follow. The muscles then become weak, and great weariness is experienced. Between the tenth day and the sixth week the muscles become stiff, of a wooden consistency, and very tender. This con dition is most noticeable in the flexors of the extremities, and occasionally the knees or elbows will be bent and rigid. The temperature gen erally remains normal or is subnormal; rarely it rises. (Edema is characteristic and appears about the- seventh day, first in the eyelids and the face, next in the extremities. In the legs it
may be extreme. It is probably due to toxins excreted by the parasites. Owing to the in vasion of the larynx, hoarseness or aphonia is common, as also dyspnrea, bronchitis, and pneu monia. Profuse sweating is also characteristic. Acne, herpes, and boils may appear on the skin: pruritus is common. Insomnia is a common symptom and is constant in severe eases. Head ache occurs if pneumonia he present. Swine suffer principally, among the lower animals; but rats, mice, rabbits, and guinea pigs are easily infected. Horses, cattle, sheep. goats, and dogs are with difficulty infected. It has been stated by some that rats carry the parasites to swine. Cats are occasionally victims of triehiniasis.
it is supposed that the parasite gained access into Europe through the introduction of the Chi nese pig early in the nineteenth century. The disease was in Syria in 1881. It IIAS appeared in Algiers: in South America ; in the West and Massachusetts, in the United States; in France; in Basle, Switzerland; in Malaga, Spain; in Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Den mark; in England in 1871: in North Germany, since 1849, an epidemic occurring in Hettstiidt in 1863.
Prophylaxis consists in inspection of swine, after slaughtering, by competent microscopists, who shall take sections from the muscles of mastication, the laryngeal and abdominal mus cles, and the diaphragm.
There is no treatment for the disease. and in all probability many non-fatal cases occur which are diagnosed as rheumatism or some acute fever, as well as some cases of pneumonia in which the trichina parasite is the unidentified cause. Con sult: Chaten, Lfl trichine et la trichinosc 1883) ; Leuekart, The Parasites of Ilan (trans. by Hoyle, London, 1886).