Another question. Did the disease affect animals in the town, and did it spare any people?

“Yes to both,” she said. “That is, many people seem to have had such a mild case there appears to be no question that they’ll recover with no serious effects. As to the animals, some pigs were affected, but not cows, horses, chickens, or other animals. Some dogs seem to exhibit slight signs, but there are no totally paralyzed ones that we’ve found.”

“Is there any connection yet between this disease and those that struck Boland, California, Hartley, North Dakota, and Berwick, Maine, in the past few weeks?” That was the Post man.

She shrugged. “Of course, they are all small towns, and in each case the mystery ailment struck suddenly and with no prior warning. However, the symptoms were far different in those other cases, even from each other. If you remember, Boland’s population went blind, Hartley’s became severely palsied, and Berwick…” She let it hang and they didn’t pursue it. Everyone in Berwick, to one degree or another, had become rather severely mentally retarded.

“It’s almost like somebody’s trying to kill off small-town America,” a reporter muttered. Then he asked, “All of these maladies are related to attacks on various centers of the brain and central nervous system, aren’t they? Isn’t that a connection?”

She nodded. “It’s the only connection, really. We are still running a series of tests on the earlier victims, you know. Our teams are working around the clock on it. If, in fact, it’s a disease of the central nervous system and/or brain, though, how is it transmitted? There is no apparent link between the afflicted areas. And why hasn’t it shown up elsewhere? Unless someone else is prepared to answer those questions, we must assume we are dealing with different diseases here.”

“Or a new kind of disease,” a voice said loudly.