（外文电子版资料）Norman Spinrad - Journals of the Plague Years 1.pdf

JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS By Norman Spinrad Copyright 1988 EDITORS INTRODUCTION In many ways Norman Spinrads Journals of the Plague Years is the most frightening story in this collection-thanks to our public health officials neglect of the most dangerous disease since the Bubonic Plague. At least the medieval city fathers faced with the Black Death had the excuse of ignorance of disease and germ theory. What excuse do our public safety officials have? No excuses really, just fear of offending political voting blocs, which keep them from exercising even the most trivial duties of their office such as tracking secondary contacts. God forbid they carry out their office; the possibility of quarantine sets them quivering under their desks. Thus, here we stand with our collective heads in the sand while this terrible pestilence has time to incubate and mutate into perhaps more virulent forms-ones that could possibly be carried by mosquitoes or other insects, or even contaminate the air we breathe. Thats unlikely, but its not impossible; no more unlikely than other disasters we do prepare for. Herewith the new Journals of the Plague Years . . . ________________________________ Introduction It was the worst of times, and it was the saddest of times, so what we must remember if we are to keep our perspective as we read these journals of the Plague Years is that the people who wrote them, indeed the entire population of what was then the United States of America and most of the world, were, by our standards, all quite mad. The Plague virus, apparently originating somewhere in Africa, had spread first to male homosexuals and intravenous drug users. Inevitably it moved via bisexual contact into the population at large. A vaccine was developed and for a moment the Plague seemed defeated. But the organism mutated under this evolutionary pressure and a new strain swept the world. A new vaccine was developed, bu