on the point of being harvested, then buried it in dust.
By the time this book is published, the consequences of the Great Dust Storm of 1993 will be old news. An Agriculture Department official at the Board said that it would lead to a tripling of bread prices by Christmas, and probably spot shortages until next year’s harvest. As to the chances of another famine, he did not feel that the loss of a crop in just one grain would lead that far. But he couldn’t be sure.
P. Chandler Gayle, NSD Specialist
My name is Chandler Gayle. I am a medical doctor. I was educated at Ohio State University Medical School. I was licensed by the state of Ohio in 1980 and the state of Illinois in 1992. I engaged in the practice of medicine in Cincinnati until June of 1992. I lost my wife, brother, and four children in the flu of 1991, and after that I decided I was willing to accept a greater level of risk in my career.
I had heard that there was a dearth of research specialists working on Nonspecific Sclerosing Disease, due to what was thought to be the contagious nature of the disease. I applied to the University of Chicago for a research fellowship in this field and was sent to London to study. I was confirmed by the Crown Medical Establishment in January of this year as an NSD specialist, after a six-month residency in war-related diseases at Middlesex Hospital in London.
I will tell you what I know of NSD in layman’s terms, but before I do that, I will outline for you my experiences during the flu epidemic.
In November of 1991 we were sure the worst was over in our area. It was by then clear that we were not going to be affected much, if at all, by radiation. Our main war-related problems were malnutrition and economic disruption. Of course, we knew that the population was debilitated. We Cincinnati doctors had organized into teams and groups to attempt to cope with the tremendous demand and the lack of communications. It was at a group meeting that I first heard of an unusual case of flu. We were very concerned. From the beginning, we saw a high potential for disaster.
The etiology of the disease was suggestive of a produced, rather than a natural, factor. It occurred to us then that the Cincinnati Flu might have been released by enemy action or by an accident at a military facility in the area. It is also possible that there was a radiation-induced mutation of the common flu strain known as Influenza A. This is the sort of flu most often associated with pandemics. The serotype was unusual; usually each new serotype of this disease follows a pattern of extrapolation from the previous serotype. Only when a new serotype is radically different from the one previous can a pandemic occur, because only then is the entire population of the planet susceptible.
The Cincinnati Flu was a radically different serotype, at least four generations removed from Delhi-A, the previous serotype. We still have no way to explain this. The Spanish Flu of 1918 was probably a similar radical serotype. It could be that the presence of large, weakened populations encourages the proliferation of new influenza serotypes. We just don’t know.
This influenza caused the most dramatic pneumonic infection we have observed. Infants and the elderly usually died within six hours. A strong, middle-aged adult might linger for three or four days. The mortality rate was about sixty percent in Cincinnati, and about three out of ten people contracted the disease. What that meant in human terms was that, during the six weeks that the virus was active, we lost nearly eighty thousand people. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem, about five thousand people died in Cincinnati in 1987, the year before the war. All of a sudden we were dealing with close to two thousand new cadavers a day, and they carried a highly contagious disease. To make matters worse, seven out of ten hospital personnel and half of all mortuary and graveyard workers contracted the disease. Eight out of ten doctors contracted it. We actually had to abandon the hospitals.
The real heroes of the flu were the people who went in there on their own to help out, and not only in Cincinnati, but all over the country. All over the world, I suppose.
I have always been sorry that the flu had to start in Cincinnati, I love that town. It was my home and it was where my children were born. I would have stayed there happily for the rest of my life, if it hadn’t been for the war.
But the flu’s come and gone. We still have NSD with us. I’ll turn to my work in this area unless you two have any more questions about the flu.
JIM: I was there during the worst of it. I remember the bodies in Eden Park.
DR. GAYLE: We were desperate. That wasn’t the only public park in the world where cadavers were stored. Look, this is tough for me. I’d really prefer to go on to NSD.
JIM: Sure. Thank you for sharing what you have with us. I know it’s hard.
DR. GAYLE: NSD is one of a cluster of postwar illnesses, previously unknown, which now affect the North American population.
The combination of the radical negative alteration of the environment and the extraordinary and ceaseless stress of postwar life is believed to have caused the appearance of these diseases, of which Nonspecific Sclerosing Disease is certainly the most serious. It is a central-nervous-system disorder and is apparently caused by unknown environmental factors. Current thinking is that contagion, if any, is limited to skin contact. NSD’s early symptoms are dry, rigid skin occurring in patches, most often across the chest or abdomen. The development of massive cells leads to the “lumpy” appearance that is the familiar presenting complaint. The progress of the disease is accompanied by generalized organic deterioration.
As it spreads throughout the body, the dense, massive cell tissue causes various types of problems, ranging from interruption of ducted flows to actual destruction of organs due to compression or constriction. Death occurs sometimes as a result of a particular functional problem, such as the interruption of the heart or irreversible trachial constriction, but more often is caused by general collapse and exhaustion. The fatality rate is at present one hundred percent.
At first the disease was approached by attempting surgical excision of the lesions. This was unsuccessful because of the broad-based nature of the disorder. A given patient at diagnosis will generally support two to three hundred lesions, most of them microscopic, spread throughout the body. Subsequently, chemotherapy and radiotherapy were tried, but the lesions were not responsive. Color therapy, utilizing so-called pink light, has tended to reduce speed of spread in early-diagnosed disease.
The permissible treatment group has recently been revised by the Centers for Disease Control to include only patients under thirty years of age, employed, and with dependent children. These patients will be treated with thrice-weekly exposures to pink light and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which has proven effective in reducing itching in surface lesions. They will be allocated three hundred grains of aspirin per twenty-four hours. When they are declared in stage-three disease and unable to function, they will be offered the euthanasia option.
Euthanasia is mandatory for NSD-diagnosed children under twelve years of age. Responsible resource allocation prohibits treatment of children for this disease because there is no chance whatsoever of recovery. The extreme discomfort associated with the progress of the disease makes euthanasia the only humane alternative in childhood cases.
Patients over thirty are given the CDC publication
It is thus important that patients learn the symptoms of the third-stage preludium so that they can carry out their plans at the first sign.
The burning sensation commonly known as firepox is the most common initial sign of stage-three disease. This means that there has been invasion of the organs extensive enough to cause a buildup of uric acid in the blood. The firepox sensation occurs when acid-laden blood enters open second-stage lesions. Double vision, the seeing of flashes, hearing loud noises without known source, feeling of elation alternating with deep depression, sudden bursts of intense sexual desire, inappropriate laughter, “Pell’s sign,” continuous vomiting, and the sloughing off of
