“Hardly that,” he said. “We shall never know now, I hope, the history of the plague organism. It was never studied under the microscope—we were too busy—and now we trust that the bacillus—if it were a bacillus—has encompassed its own destruction. What interests you, however, is that this sudden, miraculously sudden, development of its deadly power as regards humanity ran through a determinable cycle of evolution. From what you’ve told us, already, it seems clear, I think, that even in England the bacillus was losing what I may call its effectiveness. The men in the West Country you’ve described, probably died from starvation and neglect.”
He paused for a moment and then continued: “Now in America both men and women were attacked. There was certainly a greater percentage of male cases, but I suppose something like half the female population was infected as well. As far as one can judge the bacillus was simply losing power. But for all we know it may have developed, it may be entering on a new stage of evolution, and in some apparently haphazard way now be beneficial to man instead of deadly. Such things may be happening every day below the reach of our knowledge. The little world is hidden from us, even as the great world is hidden....
“However,” he went on more briskly, “the thing we do know is that the symptoms of the new plague in America differed materially from our expectation of them, gathered from the accounts that had reached us from the Old World. In England the paralysis lasted, I believe, some forty-eight hours and ended in death. In America the paralysis rarely ended fatally, but it lasted in some cases for six months. ‘Paresis,’ we called it. The patient was perfectly conscious but practically unable to move hand or foot.”
“That paresis gave us time to do some very clear and consecutive thinking, I may remark,” put in an American. “I had four months to study my ideas of life.”
The doctor nodded thoughtfully. “America is no less changed than England,” he said, “but it is another change. Well, you understand that we did not all get the plague over there; the thing was less deadly in attack and about ten per cent of us were left to look after the patients.”
“And find food,” interpolated one of the listeners.
“That was a time we won’t ever forget,” agreed another.
“Sure thing,” said some one, and a general murmur of assent ran round the table.
“And all the machines were idle, of course,” continued the doctor, “and even when the tide of recovery began to flow we had to turn our attention first to the getting of food.”
“If it hadn’t been for that we’d have been here before this,” said a young man. “I feel we owe England and Europe some kind of an apology, but we just had to get busy on food growing right away. We couldn’t spare a ship’s crew till three weeks ago.”