THE DIAGNOSIS OF TRICHINOSIS

Abstract

Regardless of the fact that trichinosis has been studied for more than eighty years as a human disease, it still remains often difficult to diagnose clinically. Observers who have had the opportunity to study cases occurring in epidemics have noted the varying clinical course of the disease, and clinicians unanimously agree that it is the sporadic case and the milder forms of the disease which are particularly confusing and which often pass unrecognized by the attending physician.¹ From recent statistical studies, it now appears that trichinosis is a common disease in this country and, further, the majority of cases seem to be of the milder forms. As a specific example, Queen,² by artificial digestion of diaphragms from 344 consecutive necropsies in Rochester, N. Y., found fifty-nine (17.5 per cent) parasitized with Trichinella spiralis. None of these cases had a history of trichinosis, although some gave a vague "rheumatic"