AN English paper, in recording a singular case of suicide, says: "It is not unlikely that the first idea of the guillotine suggested to the mind of Charles Vollance, who has just committed suicide here in London by means of such a machine, was taken from the reports given in most of the Continental newspapers, a few weeks ago, of the death of M. Couvreux, a French gentleman. It appears that this unfortunate man was possessed of two ideas,a life of perfect virtue, and death without pain. He collected every work upon the guillotine, and in due time constructed one in his bedroom on the most approved principles, the axe weighing nearly 150 lbs. Cats and fowls belonging to the neighbors were occasionally missed, and with these, it is supposed, were performed his earliest experiments. Splendid curtains were next hung around the instrument of death, and, when all was ready, M. Couvreux, attired in white flannel, lay down, face uppermost, under the machine. In the morning, the body was found in this position, the head having been struck off on to a pillow of eider-down laid for the purpose. The will, dividing his property amongst the hotel servants, is at the present moment the subject of a legal dispute. From the report of the preparations made by Vollance, it seems more than probable that he had taken his ghastly lesson from Couvreux." IN LONDON, MARCH, 1866. I hear around me, and am weary, The gloomy room is full of faces, Firelight shadows are on the floor, And the deep wind cometh from country places, And will the rain cease never, never! In that lost life that lives forever! If yonder, where the clouds part slowly, And 't is hard to feel that he loved me so! And will the rain cease never, never! A summer past we sat together, In that lost life that lives forever! Ah, sad and slow the rain is falling,- Ah, wearily the wind is calling! Would that mine arms were round about him! For the world rolls on with air and ocean In that lost life that lives forever! I sing, because my heart is aching, Yearn to the Singer and the Singing! Ah, weary days of windy weather! TOO LATE. AY, I saw her, we have met, Than you might have been with me? Silence! make no more ado! Did she think I should forget? Once those eyes, full sweet, full shy, Such an easy thing to take VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. TRICHINIASIS. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1866. THE public have been startled lately by the published accounts of a new and terrible disease in Germany, and especially in Saxony, which brings to mind some of the most terrible plagues of Egypt. The disease in question, termed Trichiniasis, caused by the ravages on the human muscle of a minute worm, termed the Trichinis spiralis, coming so close upon the cattle disease, did indeed, to the ignorant, appear to justify some of the terrible prophecies of Dr. Cumming, but to the more intelligent, and especially to the medical mind, it came as an old story. Singularly enough, the worm which is now occupying the attention of German anatomists was discovered as long ago as 1835, by Professor Owen. Both Mr. John Hilton, a demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and Mr. Wormald, the demonstrator at St. Bartholomew's, had two years previously observed small white bodies interspersed among the muscles of subjects under dissection, and that they were of a gritty character was evident from the manner in which they turned the edges of the knives. One of these specimens of affected muscles was, in the year mentioned, given to professor Owen by Mr. Paget, then a student, for inspection. These speckles the distinguished anatomist discovered, under the microscope, to be the capsule of a very fine worm, which was seen coiled up closely within it. From its hair-like fineness, its discoverer derived the term "trichina," and from the spiral manner in which it was invariably found coiled up within its envelope, he added the word "spiralis." Hence the name by which it is known. An account of this newly-discovered parasite was published by Professor Owen in the Transactions of the Zoological Society in 1835, headed, "Description of a Microscopic Entozoon infesting the muscles of the human body." This paper gave a very minute account of the creature, illustrated with drawings, and established his claim to be the discoverer of one of our latest found inhabitants, which has made such a sensation in the world. The discovery made much noise at the time throughout Europe, and the Professor's paper drew the attention of the anatomists of Europe to the worm. But one or two cases were recorded of the presence of the parasite in the human body, and the matter remained in abeyance for some years, until the German Professors again drew attention to it, and completed our knowledge of its method of introduction. [No. 18. Professor Luschka, of Tubingen, carried our knowledge of the worm perhaps up to its highest point anatomically, and in the same year the method of transmission of the worm from one animal to another was made out by a series of experiments instituted by Herbst von Nachrichten. He gave the flesh of a hedgehog, which he knew to be infested with trichina, to young dogs, and speedily found that all their voluntary muscles were full of these worms. But although this important step was made out, little notice was taken of it. His experiments were repeated in Scotland and England, but the peculiar manner in which the worm got into the muscle was yet undiscovered. Kenker, in 1860, was lucky enough to supply this knowledge. The body of a servant girl, who had died with many of the symptoms of typhus fever, came under the inspection of the anatomist. He found her voluntary muscles to be full of trichina; and, upon inquiring into her case, he found that she had assisted in the making of sausages about three weeks before she was taken ill, and that she had eaten some of the raw meat a few days before her illness commenced. The butcher who had killed the pig, and several members of the family, had been affected in the same manner as the girl, but had recovered. The sausages and hams were examined, and were found to be full of worms "encapsuled," as it is termed, or surrounded with an envelope; but, in the girl, the worms were found among the muscles in a free state. From this evidence the manner in which the parasite obtained entrance to the human body was fully made out. Pork-uncooked pork — was the vehicle by means of which the parasite was enabled to enter the human body. But, says the reader, why should pork only be the means of conveying the entozoa to the human body? The reason is, that the pig is the only animal eaten by man that is partially a carnivorous feeder. It is supposed that the pig obtains them from dead rats, which are often infested with these worms, or other garbage. Birds, although carrion feeders, cannot, for some unknown reason, be infested with the worm. In the horse, the calf, and the young and old dog, says Dr. Thudichum, the young trichina are born, but they cannot pierce the intestines, and therefore cannot immigrate into the flesh. Of course it is just possible that the worm may be conveyed, like the tape-worm, through the medium of impure water. We are not likely to drink this, but it often happens that fruit and vegetables are watered from impure tanks, into which these creatures may have got. Dr. Thudichum, speaking of a child who died of this disease, says in his report to Mr. Simon: "One preparation from the biceps muscle of a child, four and a half years of age, which died on the seventyninth day, contained the astounding number of fiftyeight. Such a preparation was estimated to weigh one fifth of a grain, and therefore every grain of muscle contained on an average one hundred trichina. Now assuming the weight of the muscles of an adult to be only forty pounds, and assuming him to be a victim of trichiniasis, and the parasites equally distributed throughout his body, he would contain upwards of twenty-eight millions of these animals." It is certainly an objection to the modern system | known diseases. The fever caused by the presence of watering with liquid manure, that in this way the of the parent worms in the intestines may be, as tape-worm, and possibly the trichina, may find their indeed it often has been, taken for gastric fever. way on to the vegetables which we eat, and in this Then, again, when the young worms are immigrating way we may be receiving noxious intestinal worms into the muscles, the most excruciating agony seizes into our system. For instance, some people water the patient; he cannot move a muscle without the their strawberries with liquid manure, not thinking utmost pain, and he lies generally upon his back, with of the little serpent that may be hidden in the fruit. his legs a little apart, covered with perspiration. It is now known that, after entering the aliment- The face and neck become tumid with a dropsical ary canal, the parasite finds its breeding-ground, effusion, which generally extends to the legs and and brings forth immense numbers of young, which abdomen. An attack of acute rheumatic fever apimmediately begin to make their way through the pears to have seized the individual, but for the want coats of the intestines and migrate into the muscles. of the heart symptoms. Again, the disease simulates It is a singular fact that these disagreeable ad- cholera and typhus, and indeed poisoning, in many venturers always select the voluntary muscles, or of its symptoms; but those who have seen a genuine those which are moved at our will. The heart and case of trichiniasis cannot be deceived, as the whole kidneys, and those parts of the viscera which act symptoms present are consistent with no other disindependently of the will, are scarcely ever affected. ease. In cases of doubt a piece of the living muscle It is, indeed, a matter of dispute how the worms get has been excised from the biceps muscle of the arm; distributed so generally over the body: some anat- and this test is almost certain to be conclusive, as the omists asserting that they make their way directly worm is distributed, in severe cases, in profusion by boring, as the ship-worm bores through a piece through every voluntary muscle of the entire body. of timber; but Dr. Thudichum, who was appointed in 1864 to investigate the subject by the medical officer of the Privy Council, asserts that they enter the circulation, and are in this manner distributed equally over every part of the body. To use his words: "Arrived in the capillaries (terminal bloodvessels) they penetrate their two-coated walls, separating the fibres as a man separates the branches of a hedge, when creeping through it, and are now either at once in muscular tissue, their proper feeding-ground, or get into inhospitable tissues and cavities, and there either perish or escape from them by a renewed effort at locomotion, enter the circulation a second time, and ultimately perish in the lungs, or arrive in some muscle to obtain a late asylum." This hypothesis certainly seems the most reasonable, as it is in agreement with the known means by which other entozoa migrate. Arrived at the muscular tissues, it seems again questionable whether the worm attacks the muscle only, or whether it is not deposited in the intervals which occur between the bundles of muscles. Leuckhart says they penetrate the sarcolemma, and eat the muscular fibre itself. Dr. Thudichum says that he has never seen but once the worm in the muscle, but always outside of it. It is certainly a strange fact that, in many cases, persons attacked with trichiniasis have not only The second stage lasts a fortnight or three weeks, perfectly recovered from its effects, but have become - seldom longer; during this time the immigration as strong as ever. It could scarcely have happened of the young trichinæ, hatched in the intestinal pasthat the muscles of these patients had been fed upon sage, is taking place, hence the agony throughout by vast colonies of worms, which would have inevi- the body, the dropsy in the face, the hurried breathtably destroyed them beyond repair. The probabil-ing, and the fever. Although the dropsy becomes ity is that the worm finds its way into all the tissues. Between the third and fourth week after immigration, the trichina has become full grown, and now it begins to prepare its capsule. It becomes fixed to the spot in which it is, solid matter is deposited around it, and curled up it lies immovable in its plastic capsule, and dies unless received again into the alimentary canal of another animal, which in this case of course it never does. The presence of these encapsuled trichinæ in the muscles may cause irritation, but that speedily subsides; and it is pretty clear that many persons suffer little harm from them whilst thus curled up, as they have been found in the bodies of subjects that have been dissected, and whose previous history gave no evidence of their existence. On the other hand the disease, when severe, puts on many of the characteristic symptoms of well The agony of this plague of worms attacking the fine fibres of nerves distributed throughout the frame, can from this estimate be thoroughly understood in the fever and weakness caused by the destruction of fibre, and the irritation is accounted for with equal ease. The progress of the disease is pretty much as follows: During the first stage, which lasts from a week to ten days, there is great intestinal disturbance, caused by the presence of the parent trichine in the intestines giving rise in severe cases to alarming diarrhoea, as may be expected. - genuine, it in no manner depends upon kidney disease, as that organ is never affected in any way. In the fourth week the immigration has entirely ceased, and the worm is beginning to be incapsulated. From this time the patient begins to recov er, the appetite improves, the pains become less, and unless complications arise, as in other severe fevers, the patient gradually passes into a state of health. Death may, however, take place at any stage of the disease. At the great outbreak of this disease which took place at Calbe, in Germany, it was observed to happen on the fifth, eighth, fourteenth, twenty-first, and forty-second days of the illness. Death generally is brought about by exhaustion: the exhaustive diarrhoea which sometimes occurs, together with the inability to take food, and the terrible agony, easily explains this termination. The difficulty connected with the treatment of this disease is consequent upon the impossibility of knowing what is really the matter in its early stages, when treatment is alone useful. In regular outbreaks of the disease the physician is led to suspect the evil in the beginning, and then it can be cut short by destroying and expelling the parent worms before they have had time to colonize the intestines with their young. But at the commencement of an outbreak, or in isolated cases, the symptoms are too like those of gastric fever to lead to a suspicion of the real nature of the affection. Prevention is far better than cure, and happily this can be easily accomplished. As pork is the only means by which the parasite can enter the human frame, we have only to take care that we eat it thoroughly cooked. The Englishman has a very strong prejudice in favor of doing his leg of pork well, however much he like beef and mutton underdone. The Germans may are apt to suffer desperate outbreaks of this disease because they are fond of smoked sausages, in which no heat is applied to the meat. The severity of the infection depends indeed upon the amount of cooking to which the trichinous meat has been subjected, and the order in which it is affected is as follows: : raw meat, smoked sausages, cervelat sausages, raw smoked ham, raw smoked sausage, fried sausage, fried meat-balls, brawn, pickled pork, blood sausage, boiled pork. As few people are likely to eat raw pork, there seems little danger to be apprehended from the most dangerous item in the list; but it is well to know that boiled pork is in all cases the most harmless. The power of the worm to resist heat and cold is very remarkable. They have been frozen to five degrees below centigrade, and have been thawed to life again. Ordinary vermifuges are powerless against them, their vitality is as great as the wheelworm, which seems almost indestructible. Let our friends, then, take care never to touch the smallest portion of underdone pork, and beware of German sausages, polonies, and things of the same kind, as they would beware of an assassin. Before the discovery of the new disease, trichiniasis, several epidemics occurred in Germany, which very much puzzled the physicians. In two or three cases it was supposed that the persons suffering had been poisoned in some mysterious manner, and judicial inquiries were instituted without any result. More generally, however, the outbreaks were ascribed to rheumatic fever, or typhus fever. It was observed at the time of their occurrence that the outbreaks were confined to particular families, regiments, or villages. The symptoms, then obscure, are now recognized as those of trichiniasis; indeed, there seems to be little doubt that they were outbreaks of this disorder. They all occurred in the spring of the year, the time of pig-sticking in Germany, and the very characteristic swelling of the face, in the absence of any kidney disease, was observed. The mortality arising from this disease is in direct ratio of the severity of the attack, and this depends upon the number of worms which may chance to be introduced into the body. One pig is sufficient to cause an epidemic far and wide; indeed, many of those which have ravaged Germany within these last three or four years have been traced to one trichinous pig. eight infected; at Hettstädt, where one trichinous pig infected one hundred and fifty-eight persons, twenty-eight died. From these facts the formidable nature of the infection may be gathered. If sudden epidemics can be traced to the action of an obscure worm, may we not hope that many of our disorders, now obscure in their origin, and consequently unmanageable and incurable, will in time come to light, and be amenable to treatment? Possibly some more subtle power even than the microscope will be discovered, and give us the power of scrutinizing diseased conditions, and finding out the agents so stealthily at work in bringing the human machine to misery and premature death. TURNING THE TABLES. [Translated for EVERY SATURDAY from the Revue Française.] I. I THE personages of this bit of wire-drawing are the usual ones of a comic stage; namely, a lover and two women, one a coquette, the other not one. shall have nothing to do with fathers, uncles, tutors; but, without knowing what is to come of it all, I just take my stand at the side-scenes. As for the comical valets, who add spice to such things, and the pretty little female go-betweens, who are usually at the bottom of all such intrigues, I don't know whether I shall leave anything for them to do or not; for I am one of those who write without any definite plan. The action takes place in our day, somewhere near Paris, at Marly or at Meudon, just as you please; and you will be spared a description. The scenery is simple, -a summer apartment on the ground floor, opening through a conservatory or glazed gallery on a garden. The hour, eleven in the morning. M. Hector, our lover, has been waiting some minutes for Camille and Cécile, his two cousins, coquette and otherwise. He has just come from Paris, expressly to see them and take advantage of the absence of his uncle, General Flavy, the father of Camille, to plan some little scheme of revenge for the scoffs and railleries with which these ladies had always treated him. M. Hector was neither short nor tall, ugly nor handsome, dark nor fair; nevertheless his manners were notable, and marked the man of the world. There was a time when the frequenters of the Boulevard des Italiens were called beaux, lions, and what not, which had some meaning in it; but we have not any equivalent for these phrases now-a-days. For want of a better word, I should call M. Hector de Sévigny un viveur de bon ton. He had decided suddenly to temper this somewhat eccentric mode of life with a little reason, and take to himself a wife. The fine project sprung up one night, and was now somewhat advanced, but was still all a mystery to the world and to his cousins, whom he had seen little of since they had gone into the country. Their very ignorance of him was what he was determined upon taking advantage of, to give a finishing stroke of glorious gallantry to his bachelor career. "I am determined," said he to himself, "that this day shall find me loved, longed for, and adored by these cousins of mine; and when it comes about that this coquette Camille, who makes such a pretence of the invulnerability of her heart, and this nonchalant Cécile - pretty Creole she is, by my faith! At the outbreak at Planen one person died out only who could be graceful and so heavy?-get of thirty attacked. At Calbe, where the epidemic thoroughly enamored of me, then 's my time to inwas more severe, seven persons died out of thirty-vite them to my wedding! That will be a victory for me worth having; and what a downfall for them!" What's going to come out of this fine plan, and who is going to be victor in this game of wits, that's what you are going to hear. II. Ir is necessary to present to my reader these two ladies, upon whom so much is to depend, before going on with this story. Mme. Camille Damberg, a young widow of twenty, with Italian features, and of the particular Roman type beside, with a Parisian heart, was rich even to millions, lively, and coquette all over; indeed, a veritable queen of the salons. Mlle. Cécile d'Harville was seventeen, fair as Mother Eve, curious, ignorant, -as Eve was before she tasted the fatal apple. Suddenly the door opened, and the pretty face of Mme. Camille Damberg showed itself. "O my cousin!" she murmured, and shaking a finger at him. "Look out, Monseigneur Don Juan, I'll read you a lesson But the rustle of her silk, or some perfume about her, may be, had already betrayed her presence, and Hector, rushing toward her, kissed her on both hands. "How kind it is of you to come here and surprise us in our hermitage," said Camille. "A hermitage! How? am I who come for a breakfast to get an anchorite's fare?" "You can't expect much more in the country, you know." "So, so, you think you are going to frighten me; but you won't do it this time, let me assure you." "Would you, then, be a Spartan ?" "Not at all, but the contrary," replied Hector, with vivacity," and my calculation proves "Well, let us see," interrupted the curious Ca mille. "You will find me very impertinent," said he. "I have just discovered "What then?" asked Camille with spirit, who, like Hector, would conceal her vengeful motives. "That this is but my absolute opinion; that you are charming, adorable, and that there is no other happiness but in being with you." In making this protestation, Hector drew near and took her hand; but she quickly withdrew it, as she thought that the butterfly was going to destroy itself in the flame. Then smiling, so as to show her dear little pearls, she asked Hector how many women he had already said that to. The young man regained his playful tone, and replied, "I can't say exactly; but you have heard such things quite as often as I have ever said them; though, unhappily, your heart is too like a diamond, or some other precious stone, to be easily melted." 66 'Never mind. The past is past, dear cousin, and the present is our only care; and quite enough for happiness, when one can take it easy." Hector said this with such an air of sincerity, that Camille was all the more troubled. "That's singular language," she thought, "I have never doubted that "but coquetry silenced her heart. "You have fashioned that at your ease," said she; "for in point of sentiment, Hector, it always seems to me that the past had neither the guaranty of the present nor the future, and your past 99 "My past!" interrupted Hector, "my past is assuredly a voucher for my sincerity." Then, fearing he had gone too far in thus laying himself open to Camille, he added, "If you can have any interest to doubt it Then came a silence, that of embarrassment. Then she spoke. Let us talk of other things. What's going on in Paris? "In Paris?" said Hector, coming out of his revery. "O, people draggle and soak; talk horse at the club, bet at the races: in fine, they amuse themselves prodigiously." "That must be very diverting," said Camille, in a reproachful tone, which was significant to Hector. "Now I understand your rare visits. But have you taken to the course?" "Me! No, not that I know of," said he, indifferently. "I wagered "And lost, without doubt?" "Won then?" "Well, this is hard to understand." 66 Easy enough, and quite amusing," said Hector, smiling: "it is a way I have,-nothing miraculous about it, I assure you. I bet a hundred louis on Monarque or Arabella; then I make things square by betting just the same on his competitor. That is my style of recklessness; and, what is more, it is a very convenient excuse for putting a pleasant or sad face upon matters, just as I may fancy to think of the half I gained or the half I lost. Besides, quite an original idea, is n't it? for, since women have taken to betting, it seems rather unhandsome to win their money; - better keep out of it." "How," cried Camille, "women! what women?" "O, fine ones, to be sure." |