Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 3, 1888, Part I

No. 432.
Mr. Pendleton to Mr. Bayard.

Legation of the United States,
Berlin, December 1, 1887. (Received December 19.)

No. 545.]

Sir: The accompanying article, with translation, taken from the Berlin Gazette of the 1st instant, has not been contradicted, and shows that notwithstanding the exclusion of American pork, as well as that of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian origin, the trichina of which the German Government seems to have such fear exists in the pork of German origin, and the disease prevails among those who eat the pork to an alarming extent.

I have, etc.,

Geo. H. Pendleton.

[Inclosure in No. 545.—Translation. Berlin Zeitung.]

trichina epidemic.

Thuringia, December 30.

Not less than one hundred and fifty persons in Unterhainsdorf, near Reichenbach, have been attacked by trichinosis, and, alas, nearly all of them must die after endless sufferings. With greatly swollen bodies, earth-colored faces, lamed in all of their members, the unhappy ones await their release. Among the few who escaped the contagion is the teacher of the village, who strenuously insisted on the examination of the meat, which the host, who had slaughtered the hogs, refused, because he did not believe in trichina. The last victim up to this time (the thirty-third) is the tradesman Seifert in Unterhainsdorf. He was persuaded, on leaving the Malz Hotel, to buy a small sausage for 12 pfennigs, because it was delicate, followed the advice, and ate death in the sausage.