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A parasite of carnivorous mammals that causes TRICHINOSIS. It is especially common in rats and in swine fed uncooked garbage. Human infection is initiated by the consumption of raw or insufficiently cooked pork or other meat containing the encysted larvae.

Genus of threadworms in muscles of hog.

A nematode parasite which sometimes infests the muscles.

A small viviparous species from 1/20 to 1/18 of an inch in length (the female being somewhat the larger), having a pointed, narrow, and unarmed head with a small oral aperture. The larvae are very tenacious of life, having been kept alive for a month. They present the form of spirally coiled worms, in the interior of small globular or oval cysts, about 1/80 of an inch long, and are usually found in the voluntary muscles. In some cases they are found free. The flesh containing the larvae having been eaten, they are set free during digestion and attain maturity rapidly, sometimes within forty-eight hours, and after a week the young, piercing the intestines, burrow into the tissues, producing trichiniasis. The T. is a parasite of the black rat and the sewer rat and the disease spreads to dogs, cats, and pigs. Human beings become infected by eating insufficiently cooked pork or smoked ham. [Gr.].

[Gr.,L.] (Zool.) Akind of threadworm Nematoda, sub-kingd. Annuloida. The muscles of some animals, especially of the pig, are liable to contain large numbers encysted.