At 11:00 PM 08/04/1999 -0700, jean-claude wrote about trichinosis in wild
boar:

>Walrus , seals, bears ,whales are carrying trichonosis too . One will have
>to explain how all thoses animals are not "affected" by the infestation and
>why inuit feeding on those raw meat are not decimated by the disease. Less
>than100 cases in the us  every year, not a big deal in comparaison with
>other diseases.

I just read Farley Mowat's "People of the Deer" about inland Inuit living
off caribou around 1950. He studied the caribou, and had a microscope with
him,
and he described the _incredible_ levels of parasitism of all kinds sustained
by the caribou by the end of their lifespan. He then describes rather
ironically
a fine, tempting raw caribou meal. It seems that the Inuit he met cooked
their
meat whenever they could, but had no fuel at all in the winter, not even oil
for a lamp during the long darkness, so they ate dried and raw meat for lack
of anything else.

Very interesting book. They may have tolerated the parasites, like they
tolerated the black flies. They died out quickly when they traded for flour
instead of eating their native diet.

Susan Kline