George W. Sargent to Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, October 26, 1883

No. 211. Mr. Sargent to Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Sir: I am now able to transmit the able report of Mr. W. C. Fox, consul at Brunswick, made in response to my request of the 21st instant, in obedience to your telegraphic instruction received here on the night of the 20th.

Mr. Fox intelligently followed the directions given to him, and was furnished every facility by the local authorities, whose courtesy towards him was most marked.

I refer the Department to his inclosed report for a full statement of the origin, nature, and extent of the disease. It may be briefly stated that the fully ascertained cause of the epidemic was the consumption, mostly in an entirely raw and partly in a partially raw condition, of the flesh of three hogs raised in the vicinity, mixed with that of a Hungarian hog. The extraordinary spread of the disease, through five villages in a circuit of 2 miles, occurred because the potato harvest was in progress, and it was customary for the people to eat raw meat and bread in the field at such times instead of spending time to go to and return from their homes. The inspection is alleged by the inspector and butcher to have been made in accordance with the law, though the record required by law was not properly kept. The inspector was the village barber, the person habitually employed in Germany for such inspections, who passes an examination as to his fitness for the task. But the three preparations made for microscopic inspection, under the law, are not sufficient to give safe results, as trichinӕ are sometimes found only after thirty or forty trials. The only safeguard of the consumer against the disease is thorough cooking, and this is ample.

The whole number of cases so far is about 438, of which 36 have been fatal and 19 more probably will be fatal.

I learn from another source, outside of this report of Mr. Fox, from an eye-witness who is fully reliable, that the scenes at Ermesleben are distressing in the highest degree. My informant entered one house where the grandmother, father, and son lay dead, and a daughter, about eighteen years of age, lay sick. She is the only one of the family left, and may recover. There are about 700 inhabitants in the village, living in about 120 houses. There are 267 sick in 85 houses. Some of the people are in want, but the community is rich, some of the peasants being worth $200,000 apiece. There is a large kitchen where food is prepared for all the sick, for rich and poor alike.

The sickness is accompanied by extreme exhaustion. Swollen extremities force the patients to remain perfectly still for weeks, unless relieved from suffering by death, which is caused directly by suffocation. These sad scenes lead to several conclusions:

• American pork is exonerated from the suspicion of being the cause of this disaster, and its prohibition by Germany upon the theory that it is more harmful than other pork is unadvised. * * *
• The inspection laws of Germany are totally inadequate to prevent such calamities so long as the people indulge the habit, which seems to Americans nauseous, of eating pork raw.
• This epidemic is a terrible warning to Germany to abstain from eating raw pork. In the language of Professor Hertwieg to the convention of butchers of Berlin, in 1865, “You know what you have to do in your kitchens, and if you do it properly we have no need of inspection.”

The constant danger from native pork eaten in a raw state is shown by the results following the prospect of local rewards given for the detection of trichinӕ. I translate the two following announcements from a recent number of the Halberstädter Intelligenzblatt, published in the infected neighborhood, showing not only that the domestic article is highly dangerous, but that the inspection contemplated by the law is insufficient:

Quedlinburg, October 14.

A reward of 30 marks of public money has been awarded to Inspector Reder, at Gr. Schierstedt, for the discovery of trichinӕ in a hog examined by him.

The magistrate of Quedlinburg has awarded a reward of 15 marks to the inspector of meat, Julius Yrem, for the discovery of trichinӕ in a pig slaughtered on the 29th ultimo.

An article published last spring in a newspaper of Berlin, which is usually supposed to express official ideas, held to the view that the prohibitory decree was proper, because a Government must recognize in its acts the tastes of its people; that Germans like to eat pork raw, and hence the fact that well-cooked pork is safe and uncooked pork dangerous does not make any difference; the Government will keep out the American article because it is dangerous in a raw state. The discussion of these events at Ermesleben in the German papers has been quite restricted, and it seems to me there has not been much disposition to draw the natural inferences, viz, that the eating of raw pork of all nationalities should cease. * * *

I have thanked Mr. Fox for his interesting report, and will forward to the Department the official statement of the local authorities to which he alludes as soon as I receive it, and will also have inquiries made as to any other neighborhood in which I may observe the disease stated to be prevalent.

I have, &c.,