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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Law Regarding Pork Edits On Pork – Part 2 QUESTION: I would like to know more about this disease-carrying germ. ANSWER: Dr. Widmer writes in the article, Pork, Man and Disease - mentioned earlier: "The trichina worm is essentially limited to Central Europe and those parts of temperate America to which its emigrants have gone.

"In comparison with the ciliate and the pork tapeworm the trichina worm produces the most serious effects in the human body. The adults are present in the small intestine of man. After mating, the females produce larvae which enter the blood vessels for distribution to all parts of the body. These migrating larvae may invade skeletal muscles, brain, bone marrow, retina, and the lungs.

Since each female worm can produce more than 1,500 larvae, and since these immature worms invade many organs of the body, many clinical symptoms may appear. In heavy infections death may take place in the second or third week, but more often it occurs in the fourth to the sixth week after exposure. Any recovery predictions vary with the location and number of larvae trichinae, severity of symptoms, and the physical condition of the patient." And now comes an interesting observation.

QUESTION: What is that, please? ANSWER: "Trichinosis," the disease caused by "trichina worms" breaks out like epidemics. And its relation with pigs, like that of plague with rats, was known to people thousands of years ago. Those who do not believe in divine origin of Mosaic and Islamic Laws, say that it was because of this epidemic that these religions prohibited pork.

The same article {Pork, Man and Disease) says: "It is generally assumed that the presence of trichina worms in pigs was the basis for the prohibition of their use for food by the Jewish people." In his book, A History of Parasitology, W. D.

Foster (1965) emphasises this viewpoint when he writes: "The Mosaic and Islamic prohibitions on the eating of pork are far more likely to have been to the observation of out breaks of trichinosis than any other recognition of an association with tapeworm infestation . . .The association of the disease with the eating of pork would be well within the capacity of primitive peoples.