Trichinosis

Into Champaign, Ill., thousands of football enthusiasts were pouring--on trains, on motor cars, on trolleys, on legs. Illinois' silver and gold, Michigan's maize and azure were everywhere. The two universities were going to play. "Red" Grange was going to play. Huzzahs and jeers.

Noontime and the game some two hours away. "Where do we eat?" Eating places in Champaign are few. Some are mere "greasy spoons." No matter, men must eat. Every place was crammed with yammering students. Sweaty waitresses, coughing waiters sloshed their soup bowls down in the few table houses. Counter men yelled their orders through the aperture. Cooks slid steaks across the grill into plates, and called them done. Roasts were rare that day. No one was particular. Restaurateurs were happy, were economizing, were profiting.

In one place a huge pork roast was the kingpin of the fare. What if it were not thoroughly done? Those Michigan boys are too excited to care. Many ate, tearing at the flesh, gulping it with oversweet coffee. At the game the Illinois and Michigan elevens lined up. Whistle. Plop! The kickoff. In ten minutes "Red" Grange made four touchdowns. The Michigan spectators felt sickish. More kickoffs. Touchdowns for this team, for that. Loud and long the cheers. Here and there someone on the Michigan stands grimaced. His stomach griped him. Pork is a heavy thing to eat, burdensome when one has to yell like thunder. Finally the game ended. Illinois 39; Michigan 14. The latter's supporters were sick. Some were to be sicker still.

Back at Ann Arbor many continued to feel queer. They became nauseated. Maybe nervous indigestion. They began to lose their appetites. Boardinghouse "grub." And when diarrhea and fever came on they grew worried. However, in all but four men these symptoms passed quickly. In two, three weeks the eyelids of these four became swollen. Every time they moved their eyes their eyeballs ached. Their muscles ached all over. High time to consult a doctor.

Frontal sinusitis? Meningitis? Inflammation of the skin muscles? Typhoid fever? Hesitating "noes." "Have you boys been eating pork?" "Last I had was at Champaign. It was kind of rare, shredded in my teeth."

"Trichinosis!"

All this was in the fall of 1924. Dr. William L. Bettison, instructor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the University of Michigan Medical School, treated the young men, brought them round. Last week his onetime patients could read in the Journal of the American Medical Association what he already had told them:

Infection Source. "The usual method of infection in man is by eating pork containing trichinae [certain tiny worms]; the hogs become infected from eating swill that contains the bodies of infected rats. The rats become infected from eating one another and from eating scraps of infected pork; thus the endless chain of infection. The rats (and dogs) are important sources of infection, as far as man is concerned, in countries in which they are used for food. The infection in man is regarded as more or less accidental, the lower animals being the normal hosts for trichinae.

"The close relationship between the spread of the disease, its symptoms and signs and the life history of the parasite makes it necessary to bear in mind the three stages through which the worm passes. The encysted [cased] larva is the infecting stage, found in the uncooked or poorly cooked pork. When eaten, the cysts are destroyed by the digestive juices, and in two or three days the adult worm develops; the male impregnates the female and then dies. In from six to ten days, the embryos are discharged from the uterus of the female worm into the lumen [passageway] of the intestine or into the lymphatics of the intestinal wall. These embryos wander with lymph or blood to the various parts of the body, the majority reaching the striated [banded] muscle and there developing into encysted larvae."

Treatment. No known drug will kill the parasite. The patient should take castor oil or calomel (under medical supervision), then epsom salts and intestinal antiseptics. Thereafter the doctor tries to build up the patient's constitution so it can kill off the trichinae. The disease is rarely fatal, yet always uncomfortable.

Prophylaxis. Undercooked pork should never be eaten, even though passed by Government inspection. Federal officers inspect a piece of every slaughtered hog with a microscope, but sometimes the parasites have not invaded the carcass so far as the piece seen. Pork should be cooked for from two and a half to three and a half hours at about 137DEG F., a period and temperature which will surely kill the trichinae. Smoking or salting pork will kill the worms near the surface, but deeper down they can continue to live.