Medicine: California's Woe

• Share

A San Francisco doctor and his wife last month ate some underdone steaks from a northern California bear which had chewed a hog which had gobbled a rat which had gnawed at a hog whose flesh contained larvae of a tiny round worm called Trichinella spiralis. In consequence of that series of meals, the doctor and his wife, their tongues, larynges, eyes, flanks and diaphragms thickly infested with larvae of the worms, last week were undergoing the excruciating anguish of trichinosis.

Colleagues of the San Francisco doctor, out of consideration for him and his wife, kept their identities secret. In consequence of that secrecy, dreadful rumor swiftly spread across the country that trichinosis was rife throughout California. In actual fact, however, the doctor and his wife were last week the only known victims of trichinosis in the State.

Even so, California last week had a great collection of other woes. Epidemic throughout the State were mild types of influenza and measles. Scarlet fever was increasing slightly. Epidemics of mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough reached their peaks last month, were last week on the decline. Gonorrhea has taken a great leap in California, half the new cases occurring in Los Angeles.