‘Nature’s always evolving,’ Quipp said. ‘Life never stands still. Diseases come and go. AIDS is new. Something even more destructive may be just round the corner.’
‘How fearful,’ Lizzie protested, frowning.
‘Dear Liz, you know it’s possible.’ He looked at me. ‘Guggenheim has a theory that the dinosaurs died not of cataclysmic weather upheavals but of tick-borne rickettsial-like pathogens — and those, before you ask, are parasitic micro organisms that cause fevers like typhus. Guggenheim thinks the ticks and their parasites died with their hosts, leaving no trace.’
I pondered. ‘Could you transport these er — pathogens — in viral transport medium? The stuff in those small glass tubes?’
He looked momentarily startled but decisively shook his head. ‘No. Not possible. Ehrlichiae aren’t viruses. As far as I know, they won’t live at all in any sort of medium or on a culture dish, which makes the research difficult. No. Whatever was in your virus transport medium, it definitely did not come from ticks.’
‘That doesn’t,’ I said ruefully, ‘make anything any clearer.’
‘Lizzie is an astro physicist,’ he said, ‘listening to the cosmic ripple from the beginning of the universe, and Guggenheim looks inward into parasitic elementary bodies detectable only by magnifying them a million times in a beam of electrons instead of light. Outer deeps and inner deeps, with our puny intellects here and now trying to see and understand incredible mysteries.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘The humbling truth is that with all our discoveries, we’re only on the fringe of knowledge.’
‘But from the practical point of view,’ I said, ‘all we need to know is that arsenic can cure syphilis.’
‘You’re no scientist!’ he accused me. ‘You need Guggenheim lookalikes to find out that arsenic can cure syphilis.’
The ultimate squelch, I acknowledged. Lizzie patted my shoulder kindly.
‘I suppose you didn’t know,’ Quipp said, ‘that it was Ehrlich himself, after whom Ehrlichiae are named, who first showed synthetic arsenic to be active against syphilis?’
‘No,’ I said, astonished. ‘I’ve never heard of Ehrlich.’
‘German scientist. Nobel prizewinner. A founder of immunology, pioneer of chemotherapy. Died, 1915. You’ll never forget him.’
In 1915, I thought, Pommern won the war-time Derby. The quirks of life were endless.
After an hour Quipp drove us back to the McPherson Foundation to find Guggenheim pale and trembling, apparently from excitement.
‘Where did these ticks come from?’ he demanded, as soon as we appeared in our white gear. ‘Did they come from America?’
‘I think they came from France.’
‘When?’
‘Last Monday. On a rabbit.’
He peered at me, assessing things. ‘Yes. Yes. They could have travelled on a rabbit. They wouldn’t live long on soap. But transfer them from a horse to a rabbit by soap... there’s no reason why they couldn’t live on a rabbit... The rabbit wouldn’t be receptive to the horse Ehrlichiae... the rabbit could carry the live ticks with impunity.’
‘And then one could transfer the ticks to a different horse?’ I asked.
‘It’s possible. Yes, yes, I can’t see why not.’
‘I can’t see why,’ Lizzie said. ‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘Research,’ Guggenheim said with certainty.
Lizzie looked at me doubtfully but didn’t pursue it.
‘See,’ he said to me, ‘equine ehrlichiosis is known in America. I’ve seen it in Maryland, and Pennsylvania, though it’s a very new disease. Not ten years old yet. Rare. When it’s caused by Ehrlichia risticii it’s been called Potomac horse fever. That’s because it’s been found mostly near big rivers like the Potomac. How did these ticks get to France?’
‘France imports racehorses bred in America. So does Britain, come to that.’
‘Then why the rabbits?’
‘Suppose,’ I said, ‘that you know where to find the ticks in France but not in England.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ His excitement, though internalised, was catching. ‘You realise that the ticks you’ve brought me have no name? No one has so far identified the vector of E. risticii. Do you realise that if... if these ticks are the vector — a vector is a carrier of a disease — then we’re on the verge of a breakthrough in identifying the path of Potomoc horse fever?’ He stopped, overcome.
‘Practically,’ I said. ‘Could you answer some questions?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Well, what happens to a horse if it gets Potomac horse fever? Does it die?’
‘Not usually. Eighty per cent live. Mind you, if it’s a thoroughbred racehorse, which presumably you’re most interested in, it will probably never win another race. What I’ve seen of the disease, it’s very debilitating.’
‘How, exactly?’
‘It’s an enteric infection. That’s to do with the intestines. Apart from the anorexia and so on, there is usually fierce diarrhoea and colic. The horse is much weakened by the fever.’
‘How long does the fever last?’
‘Four or five days.’
‘So short?’
‘The horse develops antibodies so the Ehrlichiae don’t affect it any more. If the vector is a tick, the tick would go right on living. Ticks, I may say, are themselves not much understood. For instance, only the mature ones are brown. Your soap was crowded with nymphets, young ticks, which are almost transparent.’ He paused very briefly. ‘Do you mind if I come to see what you’ve got there, down in Pixhill? Can I see, for example, your rabbit?’
‘I’m afraid I deduced the rabbit.’
‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed.
‘But come,’ I invited him. ‘Stay in my house.’
‘Soon? I mean, I don’t want to upset you, but you said your horse was old, and it’s typically old retired horses out at pasture that get this illness, and the older they are, the more likely to die. Sorry. Sorry.’
‘Can younger horses be affected?’
‘If it’s racehorses in a stable that you mean, then yes, they can, but they’re groomed, aren’t they? The grooming might get rid of the tick. Yes, that’s a theory. In America it is mostly horses out at pasture that get ill.’
‘Um,’ I said, ‘is there a cure for it?’
‘Tetracycline,’ he said promptly. ‘I’ll bring some for your old boy. It may be in time. It depends.’
‘And... er...’ I said, ‘can humans catch this disease?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. They can. It’s usually not properly diagnosed as there are so many confusing symptoms. It gets mistaken for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but it’s different. It’s rare. And tetracycline does the trick there too.’
‘How could it be diagnosed?’
‘Blood test,’ he said promptly. ‘The amount you brought wasn’t really enough.’
Chapter 12
I travelled back on the last Edinburgh to Heathrow flight of the day, again surrounded by shoals of red-and-white scarves belting out bawdier-than-ever verses. Bass and baritone voices, tuneful, reverberating. The red and white scarves, it was clear, had won the International at Murrayfield. Beer disappeared at a Jogger-like pace. A naked flame would have exploded the alcohol fumes in the cabin. The flight attendants got their bottoms pinched. The ecstasy level rose, if anything, during the hour in the air.
I sat with my head whirling from different stimuli, hearing in flashbacks the facts that had poured out of Guggenheim.