Armstrong got to his feet. "Yes, I do, George," he said, in his slow careful way. "For one thing, it is the most explosive epidemic I have ever seen. Usually they start with a few cases and, after an incubation period of two or three days, a fresh batch of victims appears, growing in number each time. Here we have hundreds, all at once, then none for about five days or so, then thousands. It does look almost as if something or somebody had infected them all at the same time."
"My God," I thought, "not you too, Joe! Not old steady-boy down-to-earth Armstrong! Shades of the flying saucers!"
He continued. "The time lapse between the first outbreak and this new surge of cases is approximately five days, which is just a little longer than usual for influenza. Also, as Dr. Hallam has already mentioned, there are some peculiarities in the clinical picture. For instance, we are seeing patients with enlargement of the salivary glands ... not many of course ... and a few with orchitis. We even have the occasional female with what could be inflammation of the ovaries. That makes me think of mumps except that the time between the first and second waves is much too short, and anyway most of these people tell me they had mumps as a child."
One of the public health men down the table broke in. "I remember back in 1956 there was some sort of epidemic pleurisy, or Q-fever, in California, in which there were cases with involvement of the salivary and sex glands. It was quite an unusual thing but I don't remember the outcome. And there were miscarriages in the '57 flu epidemic, so the ovaries were probably involved in some cases. Nobody can say those weren't natural epidemics."
"Yes, that sort of thing does happen from time to time," Armstrong agreed. "We have to postulate a mutation in the virus. Even today we haven't classified them completely and this one could be a new variety with an odd life cycle. There's one good thing about this," he concluded, "although it seems to be far more infectious than anything we've ever seen before, it isn't anything like as dangerous as the 1918 flu, or even the 1957 pandemic. We haven't had anyone die yet. Most of them are well in three or four days after the fever begins. Maybe that's because we have the antibiotics to take care of the secondary bacterial invasion. That's what caused most of the pneumonia and all the other complications that killed so many people in 1918. Frankly I'm not worried, even though I talked it over with George, here, before the meeting. I think probably everyone will get it since people who have had the ordinary types of flu or flu shots do not appear to be immune. But it's no worse than a cold. When almost everybody has had it, it will die out. I don't agree with Dr. Hallam. I think it is a natural epidemic."
He sat down, the tension in the room already eased by his calm and sensible summary of the facts.
"What do you say to that, George?" Thompson sliced the silence with his question in the same decisive manner as he made his surgical incisions.
The Chief smiled at him. "Right now I can't prove a thing, Bruce. All that I have is suspicion ... call it a hunch if you will. That's why I don't want any loose talk. The whole pattern of this epidemic, and of the virus that seems to be the cause, is foreign to my experience. The electron microscope pictures that we have, so far, show a particle that is different in shape and size to our known influenza viruses, and to any other ordinary disease virus. Our serological tests don't identify it. The Biochemistry Section has been working on it twenty-four hours a day. As yet they haven't got too far, but far enough to show that there are definite differences in the molecular pattern between this virus and influenza as we know it. It seems to be a simpler than usual pattern, reminiscent of the synthetic viruses we made some years ago. There are some amino acid groupings like those of the mumps virus too, which could possibly account for its affinity for the salivary glands. I think it will prove able to transmit its characteristics indefinitely from one generation to the next—it has, so far. We have it growing in chick embryos right now but it's to soon to be definite about anything. If it continues to transmit all its characteristics, that would be a possible argument against my theory that this is a man-made epidemic." He paused for a sip of water from the glass in front of him.
"Would you care to elaborate on your theory?" Smith, the tissue pathologist interrupted, his long narrow chin thrust forward and his deep-set eyes intent on the speaker.
"Be glad to, Tom," Hallam agreed. "I believe this is a man made epidemic, as I said before. The timing is too orderly, too sudden, to be natural. I suspect, because of its unusual structure, especially the resemblance to previous experimental viruses, that this is a synthetic virus, made up either from relatively simple chemical compounds or perhaps from particles of natural viruses recombined in a different pattern. As you all know, it has been possible for years now to take a virus apart, so that it will not reproduce, and then put these parts together again, not from the same culture, but just as if you took parts of a motor from the stock bins and assembled an engine. When it is reassembled with parts similar to the ones it was originally made up of, it will reproduce again just like the natural virus. We have also been able to crystallize many viruses and then start them growing again by putting the crystals in the proper nutrient solutions. Recently it has been possible to combine amino acids and other chemicals into simple forms that act much like viruses but are not quite the same. But there is one obstacle that we have not yet overcome. Whether we have recombined different parts of various viruses or whether we have made up amino acid combinations, it has not been possible to have this synthetic virus transmit all its characteristics from generation to generation. It breaks up; it is not stable."