A western savant, having investigated the parasites existing in hogs, affirms that in western pork, eight animals out of every one hundred are affected by that muscle-boring pest so dangerous to those who have eaten the infected meat, and so well known to all students as the Trichina spiralis.  The distinguished writer Letheby says of this parasite:  “As found in the human subject (after death) it is usually in the encysted state, when it has passed beyond its dangerous condition, and has become harmless.  In most cases, when thus discovered, there is no record of its action, and therefore it was once thought to be an innocent visitor; but we now know that while it was free, (that is, before nature had barricaded it up in the little cyst,) its presence was the cause of frightful disorders, killing about fifty per centum of its victims in terrible agony.  The young worms having hatched in the body of man, migrate to the numerous muscles, causing the most excruciating pain, so that the patient, fearing to move his inflamed muscles, would lie motionless upon his back, and if he did not die in this state of the disorder, nature came to the rescue and imprisoned the creature by surrounding it with a fibrous cyst, where it lives for years, being ready at any moment to acquire activity when it is swallowed and released from its cell.”

Another parasite found in the muscles of the pig is known as the Cysticercus cellulosus, and the animals afflicted by it are said to have the measles.  This larva of the tapeworm exists in the pig in little sacs not larger than a pin’s head, and can be seen by the naked eye.  The strong brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham.  The great heat of frying alone renders them harmless.  When partially-cooked, measly pork is eaten by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves the membranous sac which contains the living larva, and the animal soon passes into the intestines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out joint after joint, until the perfect tapeworm sometimes attains a length of thirty feet.

Let us hope, for the credit of humanity, that these facts are not generally known, for man has ills enough without incurring the risks of such a diet.  If pork must form a staple, let the genealogical tree of his pigship be carefully sought after, and let the would-be consumer ask the question considered so important in a certain river-bounded city of Pennsylvania, “Who was his grandfather?”

In the year 1800 Cincinnati was a little pioneer settlement of seven hundred and fifty men, women, and children.  Her census of 1880 will not fall far short of a quarter of a million.  She contributes more than her share to feed the world, and is, strange to say, as celebrated for the terpsichorean art as for her pork.  Even Boston must yield her the palm as a musical centre, and give to the inhabitants of the once rough western city the credit due them for their versatility of talent, and the ease with which they render Beethoven, or “take a turn in pork,” as occasion may demand, many of the music-loving citizens being engaged at times in a commercial way with this staple.