Winston K. Marks

“ Murt's growing interest was not entirely academic. His bachelorhood was no accident of fate, but rather a carefully contrived independence, for which he paid the price of eternal vigilance. As the world supply of eligible bachelors diminished sharply, his wariness increased, and he became more and more curt with nurses and female technicians at the hospital. ”

“ He had Murt's Virus!
Now what? Did knowing you had it make it any easier? Easier to make a damned fool of himself, he supposed. He'd have to take hold of himself or he'd scare her off the grounds.
At the thought of her leaving him for good, something like a dull crosscut saw hacked across his diaphragm, and he dropped his forkful of potato salad.
Back at his office, he diluted 30 cc of pure grain alcohol with water and swallowed it. Some of the distress and anxiety symptoms were relieved, and he bent determinedly to his work. ”

“ He poured 50 cc into the graduated measure and transferred it to the beaker.
"What do they call it?" he asked.
"Sulfa-tetradine," she replied. "One of a series Peterson was testing. There is no physiological data on it yet. All he knows is that it inhibited the virus in culture. So they tried it on the monkeys."
Murt raised the beaker to his lips. It was against every sensible tenet of scientific procedure. He was amazed that Phyllis was silent as he swallowed the bland, chalky fluid. He heard a clink. Turning, he saw her raising the graduate to her lips. ”

“ At the hospital, he went directly to the "zoo" in the basement. A knot of personnel, including Phyllis, Peterson, the toxicologist, and Feldman, opened to admit him to the cage under their inspection. A quick glance at the control cages showed no change in the undoctored monkeys. Males and females were paired off, huddling together miserably, chattering and sadly rubbing their heads together. Each couple eyed the other couples suspiciously. Even here, the overpossessiveness was evident, and Murt cringed from the pitiful, disconsolate expressions. ”

“ Murt searched her face, but only a quiet interest showed in her expression.
"Why does any man invite any woman to dinner?" he countered.
"You aren't any man, Dr. Murt. Nor am I any woman. I want your specific reason for inviting me to dinner. ”

“ Curly, the bald-headed bartender, eyed him curiously when he ordered a double Scotch.
"Heavy going down at the hospital these days?" Curly asked.
Murt envied him his relaxed, carefree expression. He nodded. "Pretty busy. I suppose you're catching it, too. Lot of people drowning their sorrows these days?" ”

“ Feldman added. "Hardly had time to materially reduce the virus content significantly."
Murt murmured words of congratulations to them, turned on his heel and stalked out. Phyllis followed him to his office.
"Get me some of the stuff and notes on the dosages they administered," he ordered.
"Certainly," she said. "But why didn't you ask—Dr. Murt, you aren't going to try it on yourself?"
"Why not?" he barked hoarsely.
"It'll be weeks before we can determine if it's safe," she protested, horrified.
"We haven't got weeks. People are falling apart. This thing's contagious." ”

“ For a moment his hangover dominated, but then it all came back. "Good morning! I'm great!" he moaned.
"Stitchell and the new toxicologist think they have something to report," she said.
"So do I. Alcohol is positively not the answer."
"This is important. Your suggestion on the sulfa series seems to have paid off."
"I'll be right over," he said, "as soon as I amputate my head."
"Come down to the zoo. I'll be there."
The thought of a remedy that might relieve him was a fair hangover cure. He dressed quickly and even managed to swallow a little coffee and toast. ”

“ I'd like your permission to do a little special work on blood samples."
"Another theory?" he asked caustically.
"Yes. Will you give me your permission to test it?"
Murt adjusted his Panama straw in the mirror and noticed that the nostrils of his straight nose were flared for some reason. "Your time is your own after three P. M. every day. If you want to take time out from your thesis research, that's your business." ”

“ He looked up, startled. "Yes—no, no—of course not. I'm referring to the nurses and the technicians. What's got into them? The whole lot seems to be on the make!"
Phyllis combed out her short dark hair and looked at him in the mirror. "I assure you the males are just as bad. These interns and four of the male nurses give me a physical with their eyes every time I happen to meet them."
"I suppose this ties in somehow with your pantie-raid theory."
"Well, what do you think?"
"I don't think. I just dodge. You'd do well to do the same," Murt told her, putting on his jacket and adjusting his tie. ”

“ Murt sipped his coffee and said, "Be thankful you aren't a psychiatrist. Bacterial mutations are enough of a problem, without pondering unpredictable emotional disturbances."
His assistant pursued it further. "It says the classrooms are emptying into the marriage bureaus, and graduation exercises this year will be a mockery if something isn't done. What's more, statistics show a startling increase in marriages at the high school level." ”

“ A week passed, during which a bulletin from the Government Health Service announced official suspicion that the human race was suffering a mysterious, pandemic affliction which was as yet undiagnosed. Although the symptoms, as reported by hundreds of clinics, were relatively mild, the effect on the nation's economy was growing serious. ”

“ He revealed the depth of his leeriness one afternoon at the scrub-up sink, where he and his assistant were washing after a messy dissection. Phyllis Sutton remarked, "Holly, down in Personnel, showed me a tabulation she ran off for her own curiosity today, Doctor. Do you realize that in this whole hospital there are only eight unmarried female employees?"
Murt threw water droplets from his bare arms and muttered, "Yes, and every one of them's giving me the eye—to say nothing of half the married ones." ”

“ It's the damnedest thing! Everybody's in love with the wrong people—I mean ten times as bad as usual. Of course, not everybody. Take my wife—she's got it bad, but she's still in love with me. So it could be worse. ”

“ She sat down in his oak swivel-chair and crossed her slender ankles. "Are you aware of the problem they have downstairs in the out-patient clinic?"
"Hadn't heard," Murt said.
She removed a file from her purse and touched up her short nails. "The outlying clinics are sending their overflow to us. They can't seem to diagnose the odd symptoms they're getting."
"I had noticed the large number of negative test results coming out of the lab," Murt acknowledged. "Haven't followed any of them through, though."
"I have," Phyllis said with a little frown. ”

“ The consensus among psychiatrists and psychologists was that the condition stemmed from pathogenic causes.
Dr. Murt raised his eyebrows when he read this. Perhaps Phyllis Sutton was right, after all.
The bulletin continued, "All clinical pathologists are requested to be alert to the presence of any unusual organisms discovered in body fluids or tissues examined. Please report your findings to the U. S. Public Health Service."
Murt found Phyllis Sutton at the microtome, finishing a wax section, and showed her the bulletin.
"Score one for woman's intuition," he smiled. ”

“ It was with mounting admiration that he followed her new project in examining blood samples. As they came up from the clinic, she sorted the specimen tubes at once, putting a tiny snip of yellow Scotch tape under the label of each sample that belonged to a patient with the new undiagnosed disorder.
Then, after the requested hemoglobin, blood sugar and other standard tests had been run, she retrieved the samples from the technicians, grouped them in a special rack and devoted every spare minute to further examination. ”

“ Cages of experimental animals began arriving along with several additional specialists. Ebert Industrial Labs, contrite over the original information leak, made available their electron microscope, and Murt assigned the new toxicologist to work over there with Feldman, the bacteriologist, studying ways to weaken or destroy the virus.
Stitchell, the endocrinologist, and a trio of psychologists from the State University began injecting monkeys with virus when Feldman found he could propagate it in sterile medium. ”

“ That bulletin didn't go into the psychologists' findings. The diagnosticians downstairs say that the symptoms appear to be no more than complaints of the lovesick."
"Are you back on the pantie-raid theme again?"
"I've never been off it," she replied. "From the first, I've had a notion that some organism was increasing glandular activity. Excess emotionalism often originates in overstimulated glands."
"Of course, but mental attitudes can trigger the glands, and they are interacting. How do you separate the effects? How could you guess that an organism was responsible?" ”

“ The whole world, adolescent and adult, was falling in love, with the inevitable unrequited infatuations, the jealousies, infidelities and the bitter-sweetness of wholesale, illicit, impossible love situations in which vulnerable people found themselves increasing astronomically. ”

“ Writers of popular newspaper psychology columns attributed the rampaging emotional fire to everything from mass-hysteria, caused by sunspots, to the paternalism of a government that gave increased income-tax deductions to married people. ”

“ The following morning, he presided at a specialists' conference at the hospital, during which he revealed the results of the blood research. They had all read the Health Service bulletin and were sharply interested in the photomicrographs.
When the meeting was over, Feldman, the bacteriologist, and Stitchell, an endocrinologist, volunteered to work with Murt. They gave Phyllis' "gland-irritation" theory more credence than Murt. ”

“ She drew him inside, made him take off his coat and sit down before she acknowledged his remark. The apartment was cozy, with a tiny Christmas tree decorated in the window. She returned from the hall closet and sat beside him. ”

“ It was engrossing, important work, and it could be accomplished in a normal work-day, leaving the pathologist considerable leisure to study, read and relax. Shortly after the pantie-raid conversation with Phyllis Sutton, he found the evening paper attracting more than his usual quick perusal.
This emotional fuss in the young human animal was beginning to preoccupy the newspaper world. ”

“ Factory supervisors and insurance companies were frantic over the upsurge in accidents. It was estimated that almost fifty per cent of the population exhibited the symptoms of depression, absent-mindedness, insomnia and loss of appetite. ”